LL
 
 V , -^
 
 The Voice of History 
 
 By MARTIN S. SOMMER 
 
 ST. LOUIS, MO. 
 
 CONCORDIA PUBLISHING HOUSE 
 1913
 
 PREFACE 
 
 Examination of this volume, even though it be not 
 very thorough, will soon reveal its general scope. It is a 
 collection of interesting chapters from some of the chief 
 historians of our language, the importance of the matter 
 and the quality of the style deciding the choice. If those 
 who read it imbibe not only valuable and stimulating in- 
 formation, but also acquire a taste for good historical 
 literature and a desire to investigate still further the story 
 of the lives and deeds of nations in the past, the book i$ 
 accomplishing its purpose. 
 
 The editor and the publishers, while agreeing in a 
 general way with the matter here presented, do not 
 assume responsibility for every statement of the different 
 historians. One guiding principle has been kept in view : 
 to give prominence to the struggle of humanity for lib- 
 erty and for true enlightenment against tyranny and 
 superstition. In presenting extracts which describe the 
 trend of the minds 'and spirits of our ancestors, we ac- 
 knowledge to have been influenced by the opinion so 
 forcibly expressed by one of the greatest English his- 
 torians, Thomas Carlyle, in his essay on Boswett's Life 
 of Johnson, where he saith: 
 
 " Mournful, in truth, is it to behold what the business called 
 ' history/ in these so enlightened and illuminated times, still 
 continues to be. Can you gather from it, read till your eyes go 
 out, any dimmest shadow of an answer to that great question : 
 How men lived and had their being; were it but economically, 
 as, what wages they got, and what they bought with these? Un- 
 happily you can not. History will throw no light on any such 
 matter. At the point where living memory fails, it is all dark-
 
 IV PREFACE. 
 
 ness; Mr. Senior and Mr. Sadler must still debate this simplest 
 of all elements in the condition of the past, whether men were bet- 
 ter off in their larders and pantries, or were worse off than now ! 
 History as it stands all bound up in gilt volumes, is but a shade 
 more instructive than the wooden volumes of a backgammon 
 board. How my prime minister was appointed is of less moment 
 to me than how my house-servant was hired. In these days, ten 
 
 Tdinary historians of kings and courtiers were well exchanged 
 against the tenth part of one good history of booksellers. 
 
 " For example, I would fain know the history of Scotland ; 
 who can tell it me? 'Robertson,' say innumerable voices; 
 ' Robertson against the world.' I open Robertson, and find there, 
 through long ages too confused for narrative, and fit only to be 
 presented in the way of epitome and distilled essence, a cunning 
 answer and hypothesis, not to this question. By whom, and by 
 what means, when and how, was this fair, broad Scotland, with 
 its arts and manufacturers, temples, schools, institutions, poetry, 
 spirit, national character, created and made arable, verdant, 
 peculiar, great, here as I can see some fair section of it lying, 
 kind and strong (like some Bacchus-tamed lion), from the 
 Castle-hill of Edinburgh ! But to this other question : How did 
 the king keep himself alive in those old days ; and restrain so 
 many butcher-barons and ravenous henchmen from utterly extir- 
 
 ating one another, so that killing went on in some sort of 
 moderation? In the one little letter of .(Eneas Sylvius, from old 
 Scotland, there is more of history than in all this. At length, 
 however, we come to a luminous age, interesting enough, to the 
 age of the Reformation. All Scotland is awakened, Scotland is 
 convulsed, fermenting, struggling, to body itself forth anew. To 
 the herdsman, among his cattle in remote woods; to the crafts- 
 man in his rude, heath-thatched workshop, among his rude guild- 
 brethren ; to the great and to the little, a new light has arisen : 
 in town and hamlet groups are gathered, with eloquent looks, and 
 governed or ungovernable tongues. We ask, with breathless 
 eagerness : How was it ; how went it on ? Let us understand it, 
 let us see it, and know it ! In reply, is handed us a really grace- 
 ful and most dainty little Scandalous Chronicle (as for some 
 Journal of Fashion) of two persons: Mary Stuart, a beauty, but 
 over light-headed; and Henry Darnley, a booby who had fine 
 legs. How these first courted, billed, and cooed, According to 
 nature; then pouted, fretted, grew utterly enraged, an"3 blewTjTTe*
 
 PREFACE. V 
 
 another up with gunpowder: this, and not the history of Scot- 
 land, is what we good-naturedly read. Nay, by other hands, 
 something like a horse-load of other books has been written 
 to prove that it was the beauty who blew up the booby, and that 
 it was not she. Who or what it was, the thing once for all 
 being so effectually done, concerns us little. To know Scotland 
 at that epoch were a valuable increase of knowledge : to know 
 poor Darnley, and see him with burning candle, from center to 
 skin, were no increase of knowledge at all. This is history 
 written. 
 
 " Hence, indeed, comes it that history, which should be ' the 
 essence of innumerable biographies,' will tell us, question it as 
 we like, less than one genuine biography may do, pleasantry and 
 of its own accord! The time is approaching when history will 
 be attempted on quite other principles; when the court, the 
 senate, and the battlefield receding more and more into the 
 background, the temple, the workshop, the social hearth will 
 advance more and more into the foreground; and history will 
 not content itself with shaping, some answer to that question : 
 How were men taxed and kept quief then? But will seek to 
 answer this other infinitely wider and higher question: How 
 and what were men then ? " 
 
 Similarly, Macaulay expresses himself in his essays: 
 
 " Most people look at past times as princes look at foreign 
 countries. More than one illustrious stranger has landed on our 
 island amid the shouts of a mob, has dined with the king, has 
 hunted with the master of the stag-hounds, has seen the Guards 
 reviewed, and a knight of the garter installed ; has cantered along 
 Regent Street; has visited St. Paul's, and noted down its dimen- 
 sions, and has then departed, thinking that he has seen England. 
 He has, in fact, seen a few public buildings, public men, and 
 public ceremonies. But of the vast and complex system of 
 society, of the fine shades of national character, of the practical 
 operation of government and laws, he knows nothing. He who 
 would understand these things rightly must not confine his ob- 
 servations to palaces and solemn days. He must see ordinary 
 men as they appear in their ordinary business and in their 
 ordinary pleasures. . . . He who wishes to understand the 
 condition of mankind in former ages must proceed on the same
 
 VI PREFACE. 
 
 principle. If he attend only to public transactions, to wars, con- 
 gresses, and debates, his studies will be as unprofitable as the 
 travels of those imperial, royal, and serene sovereigns who form 
 their judgment of our island from having gone in state to a few 
 fine sights, and from having held formal conferences with a 
 few great officers." 
 
 It is our humble opinion that the extracts offered in 
 this volume, fragmentary though they may be, will 
 acquaint the reader with some of the most important 
 issues over which the thoughts and emotions of the 
 people were convulsed in the past. By rehearsing how 
 men were deceived, and how these deceptions were ex- 
 posed; how men were cruelly tyrannized, and how these 
 tyrannies were overthrown, the book seeks to help us to 
 appreciate the material and spiritual advances and advan- 
 tages which have been purchased by our ancestors, 
 through bloody battles and at the sacrifice of their own 
 lives, and to instill into us the willingness to do the same 
 in our day. 
 
 The notes and comments at the head of each selection 
 are to serve the purpose of introducing either the author 
 or the matter, or both, to the reader. 
 
 MARTIN S. SOMMER. 
 
 ST. Louis, Mo., October 31, 1912.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 THE SIEGE AND FALL OF JERUSALEM I 
 
 MOHAMMED His METHODS 9 
 
 THE CRUSADES 14 
 
 THE MORAL CONDITION OF THE CHURCH IN THE MIDDLE 
 
 AGES 23 
 
 HENRY HILDEBRAND CANOSSA 30 
 
 THE WESTERN SCHISM 55 
 
 JOHN Huss 61 
 
 RECEPTION OF COLUMBUS AT PALOS 74 
 
 MARTIN LUTHER 80 
 
 INHABITANTS OF MEXICO 94 
 
 THE MASSACRE OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW'S DAY 99 
 
 THE BLOODY MARY 120 
 
 THE INQUISITION UNDER FERDINAND AND ISABELLA 159 
 
 PROTESTANTISM IN SPAIN , 170 
 
 OLIVER CROMWELL 186 
 
 THE DEFEAT OF THE SPANISH ARMADA 191 
 
 THE GUNPOWDER PLOT 213 
 
 THE ASSASSINATION OF WILLIAM THE SILENT 225 
 
 THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR 236 
 
 GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS His TRIUMPH AND DEATH 246 
 
 FREDERICK THE GREAT OF PRUSSIA His HABITS THE 
 
 SOLDIER 255 
 
 GEORGE WASHINGTON 263
 
 The Siege and Fall of Jerusalem. 
 
 Flavius Josephus' The Jewish War. 
 
 Josephus, a Jewish prisoner of the Romans during the siege 
 of Jerusalem, had sufficient ability to observe the events which 
 were transpiring about him, and had enough learning to record 
 the facts together with his impression. 
 
 " At the close of the war he went to Rome, was presented 
 with the freedom of the city, an annual pension, and a house that 
 had formerly been the residence of an imperial family." There 
 he composed his writings on the Jewish nation, the first of which, 
 The Jewish War, covers the period of 170 B. C. to 71 A. D., and 
 the second, Jewish Antiquities, covers the time from the be- 
 ginning of the world to the outbreak of the Roman wars. 
 
 In reading the following extracts from his Jewish War, 
 we cannot but see the hand of Jehovah in the punishment of this 
 ungrateful and wicked nation which crucified the Messiah. 
 
 As Josephus was speaking thus with a loud voice, the 
 seditious would neither yield to what he said, nor did they 
 deem it safe for them to alter their conduct; but as for the 
 people, they had a great inclination to desert to the Romans; 
 accordingly, some of them sold what they had, and even the 
 most precious things that had been laid up as treasures by 
 them for a very small matter, and swallowed down pieces of 
 gold, that they might not be found out by the robbers ; and 
 when they had escaped to the Romans, went to stool, and 
 had wherewithal to provide plentifully for themselves; for 
 Titus let a great number go away into the country whither 
 they pleased. And the main reasons why they were so ready 
 to desert were these, that now they should be freed from 
 those miseries which they had endured in that city, and yet 
 . should not be in slavery to the Romans. However, John and 
 Simon, with their factions, did more carefully watch these 
 men's going out than they did the coming in of the Romans ; 
 and if any one did afford the least shadow of suspicion of 
 such an intention, his throat was cut immediately. 
 
 But as for the richer sort, it proved all one to them 
 whether they stayed in the city, or attempted to get out of it ; 
 for they were equally destroyed in both cases ; for every such
 
 2 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 person was put to death under the pretense that they were 
 going to desert, but in reality, that the robbers would get 
 what they had. The madness of the seditious did also in- 
 crease, together with their families, and both those miseries 
 were every day inflamed more and more; for there was no 
 corn which anywhere appeared publicly, but the robbers came 
 running into, and searched men's private houses: and then, 
 if they found any, they tormented them, because they had 
 denied they had any corn, and if they found none, they tor- 
 mented them worse, because they supposed they had more 
 carefully concealed it. The indication they made use of, 
 whether they had any or not, was taken from the bodies of 
 these miserable wretches, which, if they were in good case, 
 they supposed they were in no want at all of food, but if they 
 were wasted away, they walked off without searching any 
 further. Nor did they think it proper to kill such as these, 
 because they saw that they would very soon die of them- 
 selves from want of food. Many there were indeed who sold 
 what they had for one measure ; it was of wheat, if they were 
 of the richer sort, but of barley if they were poor. When 
 these had so done, they shut themselves up in the inmost 
 rooms of their houses and eat the corn they had gotten ; 
 some did it without grinding, by reason of the extremity of 
 the want they were in, and others baked bread of it accord- 
 ing as necessity and fear dictated to them ; a table was no- 
 where laid for a distinct meal, but they snatched the bread 
 out of the fire, half baked, and eat it very hastily. 
 
 It was now a miserable case, and a sight that would justly 
 bring tears to our eyes, how men stood as to their food, 
 while the more powerful had more than enough, and the 
 weaker were lamenting (for want of it). But the famine 
 was too hard for all other passions, and it is destructive to 
 nothing so much as to modesty; for what was otherwise 
 worthy of reverence was in this case despised, insomuch that 
 children pulled the very morsels that their fathers were eating 
 out of their very mouths, and what was still more to be pitied, 
 so did the mothers do as to their infants ; and when those that 
 were most dear were perishing under their hands, they were 
 not ashamed to take from them the very last drop that might 
 preserve their lives. And while they eat after this manner, yet
 
 THE SIEGE AND FALL OF JERUSALEM. 3 
 
 were they not concealed in so doing, but the seditious every- 
 where came upon them immediately, and snatched away from 
 them what they had gotten from others; for when they saw 
 any house shut up, this was to them a signal that the people 
 within had gotten some food, whereupon they broke open the 
 doors, and ran in, and took pieces of what they were eating 
 almost up out of their very throats, and this by force. The 
 old men, who held their food fast, were beaten, and if the 
 women hid what they had within their hands, their hair was 
 torn for so doing; nor was there any commiseration shown 
 either to the aged or to the infants, but they lifted up children 
 from the ground, as they hung upon the morsels they had 
 gotten, and shook them down upon the floor. But still were 
 they more barbarously cruel to those that had prevented their 
 coming in, and had actually swallowed down what they were 
 going to seize upon as if they had been unjustly defrauded 
 of their rights. They also invented terrible methods of tor- 
 ment to discover where any food was, and they were these, 
 to stop up the passages of the privy parts of the miserable 
 wretches, and to drive sharp stakes up their fundaments; and 
 a man was forced to bear what is even terrible to hear, in 
 order to make him confess that he had but one loaf of bread, 
 or that he might discover a handful of barley meal that was 
 concealed. And this was done when these tormentors were not 
 themselves hungry. For the thing had been less barbarous, 
 had necessity forced them to do it ; but this was done to keep 
 their madness in exercise, and as making preparation of pro- 
 visions for themselves for the following days, these men went 
 also to meet those who had crept out of the city by night, as 
 far as the Roman guards, to gather some plants and herbs 
 that grew wild. And when those people thought they had 
 got clear of the enemy, they snatched from them what they 
 had brought with them, even while they had frequently en- 
 treated them, and that by calling upon the tremendous name 
 of God, to give them back some part of what they had 
 brought; though these would not give them the least crumb, 
 and they were to be well contented that they were only spoiled, 
 and not slain at the same time. 
 
 These were the afflictions which the lower sort of people 
 suffered from these tyrants' guards; but for the men that
 
 4 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 were in dignity, and withal were rich, they were carried be- 
 fore the tyrants themselves. Some of them were falsely 
 accused of laying treacherous plots, and so were destroyed; 
 others of them were charged with designs of betraying the 
 city to the Romans. But the readiest way of all was this, to 
 suborn somebody to affirm that they were resolved to desert 
 to the enemy. And he who was utterly despoiled of what he 
 had by Simon was sent back again to John, as of those who 
 had already been plundered by John, Simon got what re- 
 mained, insomuch that they drank the blood of the populace 
 to one another, and divided the dead bodies of the poor crea- 
 tures between them, so that although, on account of their 
 ambition after dominion, they contended with each other, yet 
 did they very well agree in their wicked practices. 
 * * * 
 
 So now, Titus' banks were advanced a great way, not- 
 withstanding his soldiers had been very much distressed from 
 the wall. He then sent a party of horsemen, and ordered 
 they should lay ambushes for those that went out in the val- 
 leys to gather food. Some of these, indeed, were fighting men, 
 who were not contented with what they got by rapine; but 
 the greater part of them were poor people, who were deterred 
 from deserting by the concern they were under for their 
 own relations; for they could not hope to escape away to- 
 gether with their wives and children without the knowledge 
 of the seditious, nor could they think of leaving these rela- 
 tions to be slain by the robbers on their account; nay, the 
 severity of the famine made them bold in thus going out. 
 So nothing remained but that, when they were concealed 
 from the robbers, they should be taken by the enemy, and 
 when they were going to be taken, they were forced to de- 
 fend themselves for fear of being punished ; as after they 
 had fought, they thought it too late to make any supplications 
 for mercy. So they were first whipped, and then tormented 
 with all sorts of tortures, before they died, and were then 
 crucified before the wall of the city. This miserable proce- 
 dure made Titus greatly to pity them, while they caught every 
 day five hundred Jews; nay, some days they caught more. 
 Yet did it not appear to be safe for him to let those that were 
 taken by force to go their way, and to set a guard over so
 
 THE SIEGE AND FALL OF JERUSALEM. 5 
 
 many, he saw, would be to make such as guarded them use- 
 less to him. The main reason why he did not forbid that 
 cruelty was this, that he hoped the Jews might perhaps yield 
 at that sight, out of fear lest they might themselves after- 
 wards be liable to the same cruel treatment. So the soldiers, 
 out of the wrath and hatred they bore the Jews, nailed those 
 they caught, one after one way, and another after another, 
 to the crosses, by way of jest, when their multitude was so 
 great that room was wanting for the crosses, and crosses 
 wanting for the bodies. 
 
 But so far were the seditious from repenting at this sad 
 sight, that, on the contrary, they made the rest of the multi- 
 tude believe otherwise, for they brought the relations of 
 those who had deserted upon the wall, with such of the popu- 
 lace as were very eager to go over upon the security offered 
 them, and showed them what miseries those underwent who 
 fled to the Romans ; and told them that those who were caught 
 were supplicants to them, and not such as were taken prison- 
 ers. This sight kept many of those within the city who were 
 eager to desert, till the truth was known; yet did some of 
 them run away immediately as unto certain punishment, 
 esteeming death from their enemies to be a quiet departure 
 if compared with that of famine. So Titus commanded that 
 the hands of many of those that were caught should be cut 
 off that they might not be thought deserters, and might be 
 credited on account of the calamity they were under, and 
 sent them into John and Simon with this exhortation, that 
 " They would now at length leave off (their madness) and 
 not force him to destroy the city, whereby they would have 
 those advantages of repentance, even in their utmost dis- 
 tress, that they would preserve their own lives, and so find 
 a city of their own, and that temple which was their peculiar." 
 He then went around the banks that were cast up and 
 hastened them, in order to show that his words should in no 
 long time be followed by his deeds. 
 
 * * * 
 
 There was a certain woman that dwelt beyond Jordan, 
 her name was Mary; her father was Eleazar, of the village 
 of Bethezub, which signifies the House of Hyssop. She was 
 eminent for her family and her wealth, and had fled away
 
 6 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 to Jerusalem with the rest of the multitude, and was with 
 them besieged therein at this time. The other effects of this 
 woman had already been seized upon, such, I mean, as she 
 had brought with her out of Perea, and removed to the city. 
 What she had treasured up besides, as also what food she 
 had contrived to save, had been also carried off by the rapa- 
 cious guards, who came every day running into her house 
 for that purpose. This put the poor woman into a very 
 great passion, and by the frequent reproaches and impreca- 
 tions she cast at these rapacious villains she had provoked 
 them to anger against her. But none of them, neither out of 
 the indignation she had raised against herself, nor out of 
 commiseration of her case, would take her life; and if she 
 found any food, she perceived her labors were for others and 
 not for herself; and it was now become impossible for her 
 any way to find any more food, while the famine pierced 
 through her very bowels and marrow, when also her passion 
 was fired to a degree beyond the famine itself. Nor did she 
 consult with anything but with her passion and the necessity 
 she was in. She then attempted a most unnatural thing, and, 
 snatching up her son, who was a child sucking at her breast, 
 she said, " Oh thou miserable infant ! For whom shall I 
 preserve thee in this war, this famine, and this sedition? As 
 to the war with the Romans, if they preserve our lives, we 
 must be slaves. This famine also will destroy us, even before 
 that slavery comes upon us, yet are these seditious rogues 
 more terrible than both the other. Come on; be thou my 
 food, and be thou a fury to these seditious varlets, and a 
 byword to the world, which is all that is now wanting to 
 complete the calamities of us Jews." As soon as she had 
 said this, she slew her son and then roasted him, and eat 
 the one half of him, and kept the other half by her concealed. 
 Upon this the seditious came in presently, and smelling the 
 horrid scent of this food, they threatened her that they would 
 cut her throat immediately if she did not show them what 
 food she had gotten ready. She replied that " She had saved 
 a very fine portion of it for them," and withal uncovered 
 what was left of her son. Hereupon they were seized with 
 a horror and amazement of mind, and stood astonished at 
 the sight, when she said to them, " This is my own son,
 
 THE SIEGE AND FALL OF JERUSALEM. 7 
 
 and what hath been done was my own doing. Come, eat of 
 this food, for I have eaten of it myself. Do not you pretend 
 to be even more tender than a woman or more compassionate 
 than a mother; but if you be so scrupulous, and do abomi- 
 nate this my sacrifice, as I have eaten the one half, let the 
 rest be reserved for me also." After which, those men went 
 out trembling, being never so much affrighted at anything 
 as they were at this, and with some difficulty they left the 
 rest of that meat to the mother. Upon which the whole city 
 was full of this horrid action immediately; and while every- 
 body laid this miserable case before their own eyes, they 
 trembled, as if this unheard-of action had been done by 
 themselves. . . . 
 
 Now, when Titus was come into this (upper city), he 
 admired not only some other places of strength in it, but 
 particularly those strong towers which the tyrants in their 
 mad conduct had relinquished; for when he saw their solid 
 altitude and the largeness of their several stones and the 
 exactness of their joints, as also how great was their breadth, 
 and how extensive their length, he expressed himself after 
 the manner following : " We have certainly had God for our 
 assistant in this war, and it was none other than God who 
 ejected the Jews out of these fortifications; for what could 
 the hands of men, or any machines, do toward overthrowing 
 these towers ? " At which time he had many such discourses 
 to his friends. He also let such go free as had been bound 
 by the tyrants and were left in the prisons. To conclude, 
 when he entirely demolished the rest of the city, and over- 
 threw its walls, he left these towers as a monument of his 
 good fortune, which had proved his auxiliaries, and enabled 
 him to take what otherwise could not have been taken by him. 
 ' And now, since his soldiers were already quite tired of 
 killing men, and yet there appeared to be a vast multitude 
 still remaining alive, Caesar gave orders that they should kill 
 none but those that were in arms and opposed them, but 
 should take the rest alive. But, together with those whom 
 they had ordered to slay, they slew the aged and infirm; for 
 those, however, who were in their flourishing age, and who 
 might be useful to them, they drove them together in the 
 temple and shut them up within the walls of the court of the
 
 8 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 women, over which Caesar set one of his freed men, as also 
 Pronto, one of his own friends, which last was to determine 
 every one's fate, according to his merits. So this Pronto 
 slew all those that had been seditious and robbers, who were 
 in peace one by another ; but of the young men, he chose out 
 the tallest and most beautiful, and reserved them for the tri- 
 umph; and as for the rest of the multitude that were above 
 seventeen years old, he put them into bonds, and sent them to 
 the Egyptian mines. Titus also sent a great number into the 
 provinces, as a present to them, that they might be destroyed 
 upon their theaters by the sword and by the wild beasts ; but 
 those that were under seventeen years of age were sold for 
 slaves. Now, during the days wherein Pronto was distin- 
 guishing these men, there perished for want of food 11,000, 
 some of whom did not taste any food, through the hatred 
 their guards bore to them, and others would not take any 
 when it was given them. The multitude also was so 
 very great that they were in want even of corn for their 
 sustenance. . . . 
 
 Now, this vast multitude is indeed collected out of re- 
 mote places; but the entire nation was shut up by fate as in 
 prison, and the Roman army encompassed the city when it 
 was crowded with inhabitants. Accordingly, the multitude 
 of those that therein perished exceeded all the destructions 
 that either men or God ever brought upon the world; for, 
 to speak only of what was publicly known, the Romans slew 
 some of them, some were carried captives, and others they 
 made a search for under ground, and when they found where 
 they were, they broke up the ground, and slew all they met 
 with. There were also found slain there above 2,000 per- 
 sons partly by their own hands and partly by one another, 
 but chiefly destroyed by the famine; but then, the ill savor 
 of the dead bodies was most offensive to those that lighted 
 upon them, insomuch that some were obliged to get away im- 
 mediately, while others were so greedy of gain that they 
 would go in among the dead bodies that lay on heaps, and 
 tread upon them; for a great deal of treasure was found in 
 these caverns, and the hope of gain made every way of 
 getting it to be esteemed lawful. Many also of those that 
 had been put in prison by the tyrants were now brought out ;
 
 MOHAMMED HIS METHODS. 9 
 
 for they did not leave off their barbarous cruelty at the 
 very last; yet did God avenge Himself upon them both in a 
 manner agreeable to justice. As for John, he wanted food, 
 together with his brethren, in these caverns, and begged that 
 the Romans would now give him their right hand for security 
 which he had often proudly rejected before. But for Simon, 
 he struggled hard in the distress he was in, till he was forced 
 to surrender himself, as we shall relate hereafter ; so he was 
 preserved for the triumph, and to be then slain, as was John 
 condemned to perpetual prison. And now the Romans set 
 fire to the extreme parts of the city, and burned them down, 
 and entirely demolished its walls. 
 
 Mohammed His Methods. 
 
 Washington Irving's Mohammed and His Successors. 
 
 In his usual charming and attractive style, Irving, after 
 recording the wonderfully rapid progress and conquests of the 
 Mohammedan religion, points out to us in the following para- 
 graphs the treachery and militarism by which this false prophet 
 sought still further to expand his tyranny. From it we may 
 see how thoroughly different in principle is the religion of Is- 
 lam and of Christ, the one endeavoring to conquer by the sword, 
 the other by the power of truth. The more the pity that in the 
 Middle Ages, through the anti-Christian confusion of the powers 
 of the State and of the Church, Mohammedan ideas should have 
 crept into Christendom, and blind leaders of the blind should 
 have endeavored to spread the kingdom of peace by means of 
 the sword. May the history of these misguided attempts teach 
 the followers of Him who said, " My Kingdom is not of this 
 world," to adhere to this fundamental principle, and to trust His 
 promise, " They that are of the truth shall hear my voice." 
 
 We come now to an important era in the career of Mo- 
 hammed. Hitherto he had relied on argument and persua- 
 sion to make proselytes, enjoining the same on his disciples. 
 His exhortations to them to bear with patience and long- 
 suffering the violence of their enemies almost emulated the 
 meek precept of our Savior, " If they smite thee on the one 
 cheek, turn to them the other also." He now arrived at a 
 point where he completely diverged from the celestial spirit of 
 the Christian doctrines, and stamped his religion with the alloy
 
 10 TE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 of fallible mortality. His human nature was not capable of 
 maintaining the sublime forbearance he had hitherto incul- 
 cated. Thirteen years of meek endurance had been re- 
 warded by nothing but aggravated injury and insult. His 
 greatest persecutors had been those of his own tribe, the 
 Koreishites, especially those of the rival line of Abd Schems ; 
 his vindictive chief, Abu Sofian, had now the sway at Mecca. 
 By their virulent hostility his fortunes had been blasted ; 
 his family degraded, impoverished, and dispersed, and he 
 himself driven into exile. All this he might have continued 
 to bear with involuntary meekness, had not the means of 
 retaliation unexpectedly sprung up within his reach. He 
 had come to Medina, a fugitive seeking an asylum, and 
 craving merely a quiet home. In a little while, and prob- 
 ably to his own surprise, he found an army at his command ; 
 for among the many converts daily made in Medina, the 
 fugitives flocking to him from Mecca, and proselytes from 
 tribes of the desert, were men of resolute spirit, skilled in the 
 use of arms, and fond of partisan warfare. Human pas- 
 sions and mortal resentments were awakened by this sudden 
 accession of power. They mingled with that zeal for re- 
 ligious reform which was still his predominant motive. In 
 the exaltations of his enthusiastic spirit, he endeavored to 
 persuade himself, and perhaps did so effectually, that the 
 power thus placed within his reach was intended as a means 
 of effecting his great purpose, and that he was called upon 
 by divine command to use it. Such, at least, is the purport 
 of the memorable manifesto which he issued at this epoch, 
 and which changed the whole tone and fortunes of his faith. 
 " Different prophets," said he, " have been sent by God to 
 illustrate His different attributes: Moses, His clemency and 
 providence ; Solomon, His wisdom, majesty, and glory ; Jesus 
 Christ, His righteousness, omniscience, and power; His 
 righteousness, by purity of conduct, His omniscience, by the 
 knowledge He displayed of the secrets of all hearts; His 
 power, by the miracles He wrought. None of these attri- 
 butes, however, have been sufficient to enforce conviction, 
 and even the miracles of Moses and Jesus have been treated 
 with unbelief. I, therefore, the last of the prophets, am sent 
 with the sword ! Let those who promulgate my faith enter
 
 MOHAMMED HIS METHODS. 11 
 
 *' 
 
 into no argument nor discussion, but slay all who refuse 
 obedience to the law. Whoever fights for the true faith, 
 whether he fall or conquer, will assuredly receive a glorious 
 reward." 
 
 " The sword," added he, " is the key of heaven and hell ; 
 all who draw it in the cause of the faith will be rewarded 
 with temporal advantages; every drop shed of their blood, 
 every peril and hardship endured by them, will be registered 
 on high as more meritorious than even fasting and praying. 
 If they fall in battle, their sins will be at once blotted out, and 
 they will be transported to paradise, there to revel in eternal 
 pleasures in the arms of black -eyed houris." 
 
 Predestination was brought to aid these belligerent doc- 
 trines ; every event, according to the Koran, was predestined 
 from eternity, and could not be avoided. No man could 
 die sooner or later than his allotted hour, and when it arrived, 
 it would be the same, whether the angel of death should find 
 him in the quiet of his bed or amid the storm of battle. 
 
 Such were the doctrines and revelations which converted 
 Islamism of a sudden from a religion of meekness and phi- 
 lanthropy to one of violence and the sword. They were pecul- 
 iarly acceptable to the Arabs, harmonizing with their habits, 
 and encouraging their predatory propensities. Virtually pi- 
 rates of the desert, it is not to be wondered at, after this open 
 promulgation of this religion of the sword they should flock 
 in crowds to the standards of the prophet. Still no violence 
 was authorized by Mohammed against those who should per- 
 sist in unbelief, provided they should readily submit to his 
 temporal sway, and agree to pay tribute; and here we see 
 the first indication of worldly ambition and a desire for 
 temporal dominion dawning upon his mind. Still it will 
 be found that the tribute thus exacted was subsidiary to his 
 ruling passion, and mainly expended by him in the extension 
 of the faith. 
 
 The first warlike enterprises of Mohammed betrayed the 
 lurking resentment we have noted. They were directed 
 against the caravans of Mecca, belonging to his implacable 
 enemies, the Koreishites. The three first were headed by Mo- 
 hammed in person, but without any material result. The 
 fourth was confided to a Moslem named Abdallah Ibn Jasch,
 
 12 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 who was sent out with eight or ten resolute followers on the 
 road towards South Arabia. As it was now the holy month 
 of Radjab, sacred from violence and rapine, Abdallah had 
 sealed orders not to be opened until the third day. These 
 orders were vaguely, yet significantly worded. Abdallah was 
 to repair to the Valley of Naklah, between Mecca and Tayef 
 (the same in which Mohammed had the revelation of the 
 Genii), where he was to watch for an expected caravan of 
 the Koreishites. " Perhaps," added the letter of instruction 
 shrewdly, " perhaps thou mayest be able to bring us some 
 tidings of it." 
 
 Abdallah understood the true meaning of the letter and 
 acted up to it. Arriving in the Valley of Naklah, he descried 
 the caravan, consisting of several camels laden with merchan- 
 dise, and conducted by four men. Following it at a distance, 
 he sent one of his men, disguised as a pilgrim, to overtake it. 
 From the words of the latter the Koreishites supposed his 
 companions to be like himself, pilgrims bound to Mecca. 
 Besides it was the month of Radjab, when the deserts might 
 be traveled in security. Scarce had they come to a halt, how- 
 ever, when Abdallah and his companions fell on them, killed 
 one and took two prisoners ; the fourth escaped. The victors 
 then returned to Medina with their prisoners and booty. 
 
 All Medina was scandalized at this breach of the holy 
 month. Mohammed, finding that he had ventured too far. 
 pretended to be angry with Abdailah, and refused to take the 
 share of the booty offered to him. Confiding in the vague- 
 ness of his instructions, he insisted that he had not com- 
 manded Abdallah to shed blood, or commit any violence dur- 
 ing the holy month. 
 
 The clamor still continuing, and being echoed by the 
 Koreishites of Mecca, produced the following passage of the 
 Koran : 
 
 " They will ask thee concerning the sacred month, 
 whether they may make war therein. Answer: To war 
 therein is grievous; but to deny God, to bar the path of God 
 against His people, to drive true believers from His holy 
 temple, and to worship idols are sins more grievous than to 
 kill in the holy months." 
 
 Having thus proclaimed divine sanction for the deed, Mo-
 
 MOHAMMED HIS METHODS. 13 
 
 hammed no longer hesitated to take his share of the booty. 
 He delivered one of the prisoners on ransom ; the other em- 
 braced Islamism. 
 
 The above passage of the Koran, however satisfactory it 
 may have been to the devout Moslems, will scarcely serve to 
 exculpate the prophet in the eyes of the profane. The ex- 
 pedition of Abdallah Ibn Jasch was a sad practical illus- 
 tration of the new religion of the sword. It contemplated 
 not merely an act of plunder and revenge, a venial act in the 
 eyes of Arabs, and justified by the new doctrines by being 
 exercised against the enemies of the faith, but an outrage 
 also on the holy month, that period sacred from time im- 
 memorial against violence and bloodshed, and which Mo- 
 hammed himself professed to hold in reverence. The craft 
 and secrecy also with which the whole was devised and con- 
 ducted, the sealed letter of instructions to Abdallah to be 
 opened only at the end of three days, at the scene of the 
 projected outrage, encouched in language vague, equivocal, 
 yet sufficiently significant to the agent; all were in direct 
 opposition to the conduct of Mohammed in the earlier part 
 of career, when he dared openly to pursue the path of duty ; 
 " Though the sun should be arrayed against him on the right 
 hand, and the moon on the left." All showed that he was 
 conscious of the turpitude of the act he was authorizing. 
 His disavowal of the violence committed by Abdallah, yet 
 his bringing the Koran to his aid to enable him to profit by 
 it with impunity, gives still darker shades to this transaction ; 
 which altogether shows how immediately and widely he went 
 wrong the moment he departed from the benevolent spirit 
 of Christianity, which he at first endeavored to emulate. 
 Worldly passions and worldly interests were fast getting 
 the ascendency over that religious enthusiasm which first in- 
 spired him. As has well been observed : " The first drop of 
 blood shed in his name in the holy week displayed him a 
 man in whom the slime of earth had quenched the holy 
 flame of prophecy."
 
 14 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 The Crusades. 
 
 George W. Cox's The Crusades. 
 
 The following is an extract from The Crusades by George 
 W. Cox. Of this excellent little book the President of Cornell 
 University says : " For the general reader it is probably the most 
 interesting and satisfactory brief account of the crusades yet pro- 
 duced in English." What a strange fanaticism seized these 
 people that they undertook such desperate work ! How far had 
 their spiritual guides strayed from the teachings of the Master 
 when they incited these poor people to sacrifice all in order to 
 reach the " holy places," but forgot to teach them that " Christ 
 dwells in our hearts by faith," and that the holiest place on 
 earth is the soul of the believing Christian ; for it is the temple 
 of the Holy Ghost. When we read the story of " The Children's 
 Crusade," of 1212, where an army of 30,000 French children 
 and an army of 20,000 German children, each headed by a 
 boy, attempted to wander to the Holy Land, expecting to win 
 what the most experienced soldiers had failed to attain, but won 
 nothing but famine, slavery, and death, do we not see then that 
 the religious leaders of that day had lost not only the true con- 
 ception of Christ's holy religion, but even the good sense to 
 judge in common matters of life? It is true that the crusades 
 were not devoid of some good effects, but these were fortui- 
 tous, whereas the undertaking itself had no warrant in God's 
 Word. 
 
 Before the Roman pontiff, Peter poured forth his story of 
 the wrongs which called for immediate redress. But no elo- 
 quence was needed to stir the heart of Urban. The zeal 
 of the pope was probably as sincere as that of any others 
 who engaged in the enterprise ; but it could not fail to derive 
 strength from the consciousness that, whatever might be 
 the result to the warriors of the cross, his own power would 
 rest henceforth on more solid foundations. His blessing 
 was therefore eagerly bestowed on the fervent enthusiast 
 who undertook to go through the length and breadth of the 
 land, stirring up the people to great work for the love of God 
 and of their own souls. His eloquence may have been as 
 rude as it was ready; but its deficiencies were more than 
 made up by the earnestness which gave even to the glance 
 of his eye a force more powerful than speech. Dwarfish in 
 stature and mean in person, he was yet filled with a fire which 
 would not stay, and the horrors which were burned in upon 
 his soul were those which would most surely stir the con-
 
 THE CRUSADES. 15 
 
 science and rouse the wrath of his hearers. His fiery ap- 
 peals carried everything before them. Wherever he went, 
 rich and poor, aged and young, the knight and the peasant, 
 thronged round the emaciated stranger, who, with his head 
 and feet bare, rode on his ass, carrying a huge crucifix. 
 That form of which they beheld the bleeding sign he had 
 himself seen ; nay, he had received from the Savior a 
 letter which had fallen down from heaven. He appealed 
 to every feeling which may stir the heart of mankind gen- 
 erally, to every motive which should have special power with 
 all faithful Christians. He called upon them for the de- 
 liverance of the land which was the cradle of their faith, 
 for the punishment of the barbarian who had dared to defile 
 it, for the rescue of the brethren who were the victims of 
 his tyranny. 
 
 The vehemence which choked his own utterance became 
 contagious; his sobs and groans called forth the tears and 
 cries of the vast crowds that hung upon his words, and that 
 greedily devoured the harrowing accounts of the pilgrims 
 whom Peter brought forward as witnesses to the truth 
 of his picture. Motives more earthly may have mingled 
 with his austere call in the minds of some who heard him. 
 Of these motives the hermit said nothirfg. 
 
 But there is no doubt that he made his last and most con- 
 straining appeal to that notion of mechanical religion which 
 the prophet Micah puts into the mouth of Balak, the king of 
 Moab. The consciences of some amongst his hearers might 
 be weighed down by the burden of sins too grievous almost 
 for forgiveness. He besought them to remember that such 
 fears were altogether misplaced, if only they made up their 
 minds to take part in the redemption of the Holy Land. 
 If they chose to become the soldiers of the cross, their salva- 
 tion was at once achieved. There was no sin, however fear- 
 ful, which would not be canceled by the mere taking of the 
 vow; no sinful habits which would not be condoned in those 
 who might fall in battle with the unbelievers. The ex- 
 citement of the moment, the frenzy which, having first 
 unsettled the mind of the hermit, was by him communicated 
 to his hearers, threw, we cannot doubt, a specious coloring 
 over a degrading morality and a hopelessly corrupting re-
 
 16 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 ligion ; but as little can we doubt that the whole temper which 
 stirred up and kept alive the enterprise left behind it a 
 poisoned atmosphere which could be cleared only by the 
 storms and tempests of the Reformation. 
 
 The preaching of the hermit predetermined the results of 
 the Council of Clermont. But Urban and the throng of 
 bishops and abbots who were gathered round him were well 
 aware that something more was needed than the enlisting of 
 an army of zealots for distant warfare. With our settled 
 laws and orderly government, it is almost impossible for us to 
 realize the condition even of the most advanced states of 
 Christian Europe in an age when the power of the king 
 over his vassals meant simply that which the strength or 
 the weakness of the vassals made it and when the vassal, 
 if he owed allegiance to his lord, was bound by no ties to his 
 fellow-vassals. The system of feudalism could not fail to 
 feed the worst passions of human nature; and the absence 
 of an authority capable of constraining all alike involved for 
 those who felt or fancied themselves aggrieved an irresist- 
 ible temptation to take the law into their own hands. 
 
 But the practice of private war thus set up would sooner 
 or later assume the form of a trade, and in the words of 
 William of Malmesbury things had now come to so wretched a 
 pass that feudal chiefs would take each other captive on little 
 or no pretense, and would set their prisoners free only on 
 the payment of an enormous ransom. This military violence 
 of the laity was accompanied by corruption on the part of 
 the clergy, showing itself in a shameless traffic of benefices 
 and dignities which, in brief phrase, fell to the lot of the high- 
 est bidder. In such a condition of things to drain off to dis- 
 tant lands a large proportion of the men who at home might 
 do something to check, if not to repress, the mischief, would be 
 to leave those who remained behind defenseless. Decrees 
 were therefore passed condemning private wars; confirming 
 the Truce of God, which suspended all hostilities during four 
 days of each week, and placing the women and the clergy 
 under the protection of the Church, which in an especial man- 
 ner was extended to merchants and husbandmen for three 
 years. 
 
 When, the business of the council being ended, Urban
 
 THE CRUSADES. 17 
 
 ascended a lofty scaffold and began his address to the people, 
 he spoke to hearers for whom arguments were no longer 
 needed, but who were well pleased to hear from the chief 
 of Christendom words which carried with them comfort 
 and encouragement. Three forms or versions of this 
 speech have been preserved to us, one in the pages 
 of William of Tyre, a second in those of William of 
 Malmesbury, a third from a manuscript in the Vatican. It 
 is possible that they may represent three different speeches; 
 but the substance of all is the same, and we are left in no 
 doubt of the general tenor of his words. With some in- 
 consistency he dwelt on the cowardice of the barbarians who 
 had contrived to conquer Syria, and whose tyranny called 
 forth the appeal which he now made to" them. The Turk, 
 shrinking from close encounter, trusted to his bow and 
 arrow ; and the venom of his poisoned shaft, not the bravery 
 of a valiant warrior, inflicted death on the man whom it 
 struck. 
 
 Their fears, he added, were justified; for the blood which 
 ran in the veins of men born in countries scorched with the 
 heat of the sun was scanty in stream and poor in quality 
 as compared with that which coursed through the bodies of 
 men belonging to more temperate regions. In these tem- 
 perate regions you were born, he pleaded, and you have 
 therefore a title to victory which your enemies can never ac- 
 quire. You have prudence, you have discipline, you have 
 skill and valor, and you will go forth, through the gift of 
 God and the privilege of St. Peter, absolved from all your 
 sins. The consciousness of this freedom shall soothe the toil 
 of your journey, and death will bring to you the benefits 
 of a blessed martyrdom. Suffer and torture may perhaps 
 await you. You may picture them to yourselves as the most 
 exquisite tortures, and the picture may perhaps fall short of 
 the agony which you may have to undergo; but your suf- 
 ferings will redeem your souls at the expense of your bodies. 
 Go, then, on your errand of love which will put out of sight 
 all the ties that bind you to the spots which you have called 
 your homes. Your homes in truth they are not. For the 
 Christian all the world is exile, and all the world is, at the 
 same time, his country. If you leave a rich patrimony here, 
 
 2
 
 18 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 a better patrimony is promised to you in the Holy Land. 
 They who die will enter the mansions of heaven, while the 
 living shall behold the sepulcher of their Lord. Blessed, 
 such a recompense ; happy they who are led to such a con- 
 flict that they may share in such rewards ! 
 
 It was no wonder that words thus striking chords of 
 feeling already stretched to intensity should be interrupted 
 with the passionate cry, " It is the will of God ! It is the 
 will of God ! " which broke from the assembled multitude. 
 " It is in truth His will," added the pontiff, " and let these 
 words be your war-cry when you unsheathe your swords 
 against the enemy. You are soldiers of the cross ; wear then 
 on your breasts or on your shoulders, the blood-red sign of 
 Him who died for the salvation of your souls. Wear it as a 
 token that His help will never fail you; wear it as a pledge 
 of a vow which can never be recalled." 
 
 By these words the war now proclaimed against the 
 Turks received the name which has become a general title 
 for all wars or hostile undertakings carried on in the name 
 of religion. Thousands hastened at once to put on the armor 
 and so to take their place among the ranks of the crusaders. 
 
 The rival claims of the anti-pope withheld Urban him- 
 self from taking the pledge to which he was clamorously 
 invited ; and worldly prudence alone may have suggested the 
 wisdom of standing aloof from a conflict in which disaster 
 to a Roman pontiff would certainly be regarded as a visible 
 sign of the divine displeasure. 
 
 Of the clergy the first to assume the cross was Adhemar 
 (Aymer), bishop of Puy, and as his reward he received the 
 powers and dignity of papal legate. At the head of the 
 laity, Raymond, count of Toulouse, duke of Narbonne, and 
 marquis of Provence, promised through his ambassadors to be 
 ready by the Feast of the Assumption, August 15, next fol- 
 lowing the council, the day fixed for the departure of the cru- 
 sading hosts for Constantinople. 
 
 Thus was the die cast for a venture which in the eye of 
 a keen-sighted general or a far-seeing statesman should have 
 boded little good, but which held out irresistible attractions 
 for the great mass of the people, attractions which contin- 
 ued to draw hundreds and thousands still to the unknown
 
 THE CRUSADES. 19 
 
 and mysterious East, when a long series of disasters had 
 proved that the journey to Jerusalem was in all likelihood 
 a journey to the grave. For the really sincere and devout, 
 whose lives had been passed without reproach, and who 
 could await the future with a clear conscience, there was the 
 deep sense of binding duty, the yearning to be brought nearer, 
 whether on earth or in heaven, to the Master whom they 
 loved. For the feudal chieftain there was the fierce pastime 
 of war which formed the main occupation and perhaps the 
 only delight of his life, with the wild excitement produced 
 by the thought that the indulgence of his passions had now 
 become a solemn act of religion. There was also the pros- 
 pect of vast and permanent conquest; and the duke or count 
 who left a fair domain behind him might look forward to the 
 chance of winning a realm as splendid as that which Robert 
 Guiscard and his Normans had won in Apulia and Sicily. 
 For the common herd, and those whom gross living had 
 rendered moral cowards, there was the offer of a method by 
 which they might wipe away their guilt without changing 
 their character and disposition. Not a few might be caught 
 by the philosophy of the abbot Guibert, who boldly drew a 
 parallel between the crusades and holy orders, or monarchism. 
 That height of perfection which ecclesiastics might reach in 
 their own sphere was now attainable by laymen through an 
 enterprise in which their usual license and habits of life 
 would win them the favor of God not less than the most un- 
 sparing austerity of the monk or the priest. It was, in short, 
 a new mode of salvation, and they who were hurrying along 
 the broad road to destruction now found that the taking of 
 a vow converted it into the narrow and rugged path to 
 heaven. 
 
 Nor was the number few of those for whom this con- 
 venient arrangement was combined with some solid temporal 
 advantages. The cross on the breast or shoulder set free 
 from the clutches of his lord the burgher or the peasant at- 
 tached to the soil, opened the prison doors for malefactors of 
 every kind, released the debtor from the obligation of paying 
 interest on his debts while he wore the sacred badge, and 
 placed him beyond the reach of his creditors. 
 
 Lastly, the episode of a crusade might be for the priest
 
 20 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 a pleasant interruption to the dull routine of parochial work, 
 to the monk an agreeable change from the wearisome 
 monotony of his conventual life. The usurer and the creditor 
 might fancy himself to be somewhat hardly treated. Yet 
 they were among the few to whom the crazy enterprise 
 (crazy not from the impracticability of its objects, but from 
 the way in which these were followed) brought a solid bene- 
 fit. The unthinking throng might rush off to Palestine with- 
 out making the least preparation for their journey or their 
 maintenance in the blind faith that they would be fed and 
 clothed like the fowls of the air or the lilies of the field. 
 
 But for those who could judge more soberly, and for those 
 who were not willing to forego their luxuries or their pleas- 
 ures, there was the need of providing a store of the precious 
 metals by means of which alone their wishes could be grati- 
 fied. The duke, who had to maintain a vast and brilliant 
 retinue, was compelled to mortgage his dominions; and thus 
 for the sum of ten thousand marks wrung from the lower 
 orders in the English state, William Rufus obtained from his 
 brother Robert the government of his dukedom for five years 
 and took care that the prize so won should not slip again 
 from his grasp. Nobles and knights, setting off on the 
 crusade, all wished to sell land, all wished to buy arms and 
 horses. The arms and horses therefore became ruinously 
 dear, the lands ridiculously cheap. It is easy to see that 
 the prudent trader, the cautious merchant, the landowner 
 whose eye was fixed on the main chance, would stand at 
 an enormous advantage. 
 
 THE FIRST CRUSADE. 
 
 Little more than half the time allowed for the gathering 
 of the crusaders had passed away, when a crowd of some 
 60,000 men and women, neither caring nor thinking about the 
 means by which their ends could be attained, insisted that the 
 hermit Peter should lead them at once to the Holy City. 
 Mere charity may justify the belief that some even among 
 these may have been folk of decent lives moved by the 
 earnest conviction that their going to Jerusalem would do 
 some good. That the vast majority looked upon their vow 
 as a license for the commission of any sin there can be no
 
 THE CRUSADES. 21 
 
 moral doubt; that they exhibited not a single quality needed 
 for the successful prosecution of their enterprise is abso- 
 lutely certain. With a foolhardiness equal to his ignorance, 
 Peter undertook the task, in which he was aided by Walter 
 the Penniless, a man with some pretentions to the soldierlike 
 character. But the utter disorder of this motley host made it 
 impossible for them to journey long together. At Cologne 
 they parted company; and 15,000 under the penniless Walter 
 made their way to the frontiers of Hungary, while Peter led 
 onward a host which swelled gradually on the march to 
 about 40,000. 
 
 Another army, or horde, of perhaps 20,000 marched under 
 the guidance of Emico, count of Leiningen, a third under 
 that of the monk Gottschalk, a man not notorious for the 
 purity or disinterestedness of his motives. Behind these came 
 a rabble, it is said, of about 200,000 men, women, and children, 
 preceded by a goose and a goat, or, as some have supposed, 
 by banners on which, as symbols of the mysterious faith of 
 Gnostics and Paulicians, the likeness of these animals was 
 painted. In this vile horde no pretense was kept up of order 
 or decency. Sinning freely, it would seem, that grace might 
 abound, they plundered and harried the lands through which 
 they marched, while 3,000 horsemen, headed by some counts 
 and gentlemen, were not too dignified to act as their attend- 
 ants and to share their spoil. 
 
 But if they had no scruple in robbing Christians, their de- 
 light was to prove the reality of their mission as soldiers of 
 the cross by plundering, torturing, and slaying the Jews. 
 A crusade against the Turk was interpreted as a crusade 
 directed not less explicitly against the descendants of those 
 who had crucified the Redeemer. The streets of Verdun 
 and Treves, and of the great cities on the Rhine, ran red with 
 the blood of their victims; and if some saved their lives by 
 pretended conversions, many more cheated their persecutors 
 by throwing their property and their persons either into the 
 rivers or into the consuming fires. 
 
 Thus auspiciously began the mighty enterprise on which 
 Pope Urban had insisted as the first duty of all Christians; 
 and thus early did the result of his preaching tend to revive 
 the waning power of the emperor, who interposed his author-
 
 22 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 ity to this merciless onslaught on a peaceful and useful class 
 of his subjects. The Jews were taken under the protection of 
 the empire, and for the time the change was a real relief. 
 Their posterity found to their cost that their guardian might 
 in his turn become their plunderer and tormentor. A space 
 of six hundred miles lay between the Austrian frontier and 
 Constantinople ; and across the dreary waste the followers of 
 Walter the Penniless struggled on, destitute of money, and 
 rousing the hostility of the inhabitants, whom they robbed 
 and ill-used. In Bulgaria their misdeeds provoked reprisals 
 which threatened their destruction; and none perhaps would 
 have reached Constantinople if the imperial commander at 
 Naissos had not rescued them from their enemies, supplied 
 them with food, and guarded them through the remainder 
 of their journey. These succors involved some costs; and 
 the costs were paid by the sale of unarmed men among the 
 pilgrims, and especially of the women and children, who were 
 seized to provide the necessary funds. Of those who formed 
 the train of the hermit Peter, 7,000 only, it is said, reached 
 Constantinople. 
 
 Of such a rabble rout the Emperor Alexios needed not to 
 be afraid. Alexios wished simply to be rid of their presence : 
 they had to deal with an enemy still more crafty and formi- 
 dable in the Seljukian Sultan David, whose surname Kilidje 
 Arslan marked him out as the Sword of the Lion. The va- 
 grants whom Peter and Walter had brought thus far on the 
 road to Jerusalem were scattered about the land in search 
 of food ; and it was no hard task for David to cheat the main 
 body with the false tidings that their companions had carried 
 the walls of Nice (Nikaia), and were reveling in the pleasures 
 and spoils of his capitol. The doomed horde rushed into the 
 plain which fronts the city; and a vast heap of bones alone 
 remained to tell the story of the great catastrophe, when the 
 forces which might more legitimately claim the name of an 
 army, passed the spot where the Seljukian had entrapped and 
 crushed his victims. In this wild expedition not less, it is 
 said, than three hundred thousand human beings had already 
 paid the penalty of their lives.
 
 MORAL CONDITION OF CHURCH IN MIDDLE AGES. 23 
 
 The Moral Condition of the Church in the 
 Middle Ages. 
 
 Lea's An Historical Sketch of Sacerdotal Celibacy in the 
 Christian Church. 
 
 History ought not only record the contests and vicissitudes 
 of the field, the intrigues and plans of courts and kings, the 
 revolutions of nations, and the military achievements of their 
 soldiers; it ought also picture to us the life of the people in 
 their homes, their habits, their morals, and their modes of 
 thought. This is especially true of that period of time which 
 is known as the Dark Ages. That was a time when men strug- 
 gled on in darkness, and tyrants endeavored to force their 
 theories and superstition upon God's people. Henry C. Lea 
 has undertaken in this volume to relate and to describe the 
 efforts of the leaders of the Church of that day to force upon 
 the servants of the Church an unnatural morality. No other 
 book gives us such a clear and unbiased view of the development 
 of the tyranny and the results of its exercise among the clergy 
 as this historical sketch, and one who is willing to spend some 
 time in becoming acquainted with the great revolutions in 
 the life of nations should not fail to study this portion of the 
 moral history of civilized peoples. No amount of other his- 
 torical reading can supply the enlightenment that is derived 
 from the careful investigation of this subject at the hand of 
 such an able writer as Mr. Lea. We see here again that 
 Popery has driven its people away from Christ, and into un- 
 speakable misery, agony of conscience, vice, and despair. 
 
 The unrelaxing efforts of two centuries had at length 
 achieved an inevitable triumph. One by one the different 
 churches of Latin Christendom yielded to the fiat of the 
 successor of St. Peter, and their ecclesiastics were forced to 
 forego the privilege of assuming the most sacred of earthly 
 ties, with the sanction of heaven and the approbation of man. 
 Sacerdotalism vindicated its claim to exclusive obedience; 
 the Church successfully asserted its right to command the en- 
 tire life of its members, and to sunder all the bonds that might 
 allure them to render a divided allegiance. In theory, at 
 least, all who professed a religious life, or assumed the sacred 
 ministry, were given up wholly to the awful service which 
 they had undertaken; no selfishly personal aspirations could 
 divert their energies from the aggrandizement of their class, 
 nor were the temporal possessions of the establishment to 
 be exposed to the minute but all-pervading dilapidation of the 
 wife and family.
 
 24 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 If these were the objects of the movement inaugurated by 
 Damiani and Hildebrand, and followed up with such unre- 
 lenting vigor by Calixtus and Alexander and Innocent, the 
 history of the Medieval Church attests how fully they were 
 attained. It is somewhat instructive, indeed, to observe that 
 in the rise of the papal power to its culmination under In- 
 nocent III it was precisely the pontiffs most conspicuous for 
 their enforcement of the rule of celibacy who were likewise 
 most prominent in their assertion of the supremacy, temporal 
 and spiritual, of the head of the Roman Church. Whether or 
 not they recognized and acknowledged the connection, they 
 labored as though the end in view was clearly appreciated, 
 and their triumphs on the one field were sure to be followed 
 by corresponding successes on the other. 
 
 Yet in all this the ostensible object was always repre- 
 sented to be the purity of the Church and of its ministers. 
 The other advantages were either systematically ignored, or 
 but casually alluded to. If the results which were thus kept 
 in the background were attained, what was the effect with 
 regard to those which were held out as the sole and sufficient 
 reason for reforming the great body of the Church, and re- 
 suscitating the all but forgotten law which opened an impass- 
 able gulf between the ecclesiastic and the layman? 
 
 One warning voice, indeed, was raised in a quarter where 
 it would have at least commanded respectful attention, had 
 not the Church appeared to imagine itself superior to the or- 
 dinary laws of cause and effect. While Innocent II was 
 laboring to enforce his new doctrine that ordination and re- 
 ligious vows were destructive of marriage, St. Bernard, the 
 ascetic reformer of monachism and the foremost ecclesiastic 
 of his day, was thundering against the revival of Manicheism. 
 The heresies of the Albigenses respecting marriage were to 
 be combated, and in performing this duty, he pointed out 
 with startling vigor the evils to the Church and to mankind 
 of the attempt to enforce a purity incompatible with human 
 nature. Deprive the Church of honorable marriage, he ex- 
 claimed, and you fill her with concubinage, incest, and all 
 manner of nameless vice and uncleanness. It was still an 
 age of faith ; and while earnest men like St. Bernard could 
 readily anticipate the evils attendant upon the asceticism of
 
 MORAL CONDITION OF CHURCH IN MIDDLE AGES. 25 
 
 heretics, they could yet persuade themselves, as the Council of 
 Trent subsequently expressed it, that God would not deny 
 the gift of chastity to those who wisely sought it in the 
 bosom of the true Church. Thus, despite the divine warn- 
 ing, they were resolved deliberately to tempt the Lord, and 
 it remains for us to see what was the success of the attempt. 
 It is somewhat significant that when, in France, the rule 
 of celibacy was completely restored, strict churchmen should 
 have found it necessary to revive the hideously suggestive 
 restriction which denied to the priest the society of his 
 mother or of his sister. Even in the profoundest barbarism 
 of the tenth century, or the unbridled license of the eleventh ; 
 even when Damiani descanted upon the disorders of his con- 
 temporaries with all the cynicism of the most exalted as- 
 ceticism, horrors such as these are not alluded to. It was re- 
 served for the advancement of the thirteenth century and the 
 enforcement of celibacy to show us how outraged human 
 nature may revenge itself, and protest against the shackles 
 imposed by blind and unreasoning bigotry. In. 1208, Guala, 
 Cardinal of St. Martin, Innocent's legate in France, issued 
 an order in which he not only repeated the threadbare prohi- 
 bitions respecting focariae and concubines, but commanded 
 that even mothers and other relatives should not be allowed 
 to reside with men in holy orders, the devil being the conve- 
 nient personage on whom, as usual, was thrown the responsi- 
 bility of the scandals which were known to occur under such 
 circumstances. That this decree was not allowed to pass 
 into speedy oblivion is shown by a reference to it as still 
 well known and enforced a century later in the statutes of the 
 church of Treguier ; and that the necessity of it was not eva- 
 nescent may be assumed from its repetition in the regulations 
 of the see of Nismes, the date of which is uncertain, but prob- 
 ably attributable to the close of the fourteenth century. At 
 the same time, we have evidence that Cardinal Guala's efforts 
 were productive of little effect. Four years later, in 1212, 
 we find Innocent formally authorizing the prelates of France 
 to mercifully pardon those who had been excommunicated 
 under Guala's rule, with the suggestive proviso that the 
 power thus conferred was not to be used for the purpose of 
 extorting unhallowed gains. Still more significant is the
 
 26 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 fact that in the same year Innocent dispatched another legate, 
 Cardinal Robert, duly commissioned to renew the endless 
 task of purifying the Gallican Church. Guala's efforts would 
 already seem to have passed into oblivion, for in a council 
 which Cardinal Robert held in Paris he gravely promulgated 
 a canon forbidding the priesthood from keeping their con- 
 cubines so openly as to give rise to scandal, and threatened 
 the recalcitrants with excommunication if they should persist 
 in retaining their improper consorts for forty days after 
 receiving notice. 
 
 The clergy of France were not exceptional, and, unfor- 
 tunately, there can be no denial of the fact that notorious and 
 undisguised illicit unions or still more debasing secret li- 
 centiousness was a universal and pervading vice of the 
 Church throughout Christendom. Its traces among all ec- 
 clesiastical legislation of the thirteenth, fourteenth, and 
 fifteenth centuries are too broad and deep to be called into 
 question, and if no evidence remained except the constant and 
 unavailing efforts to repress it, that alone would be suffi- 
 cient. National and local synods, pastoral epistles, statutes 
 of churches, all the records of ecclesiastical discipline are full 
 of it. Now deploring and now threatening, exhausting in- 
 genuity in devising new regulations and more effective 
 punishments, the prelates of those ages found themselves in- 
 volved in a task as endless and as bootless as that of the 
 Danaidae. Occasionally, indeed, it is lost sight of momen- 
 tarily, when the exactions and usurpations of the laity or the 
 gradual extension of secular jurisdiction monopolized the 
 attention of those who were bound to defend the privileges of 
 their class ; but with these rare exceptions, it may be asserted 
 as a general truth that scarcely a synod met, or a body of laws 
 were drawn up to govern some local church, in which the 
 subject would not receive a prominent position and careful 
 consideration. It would be wearisome and unprofitable to 
 recapitulate here the details of this fruitless iteration without 
 by any means exhausting the almost limitless materials for in- 
 vestigation. I have collected a formidable mass of references 
 upon the subject, but an examination of them shows so little 
 novelty and so constantly a recurrence to the starting point 
 that no new principles can be evolved from them, and their
 
 MORAL CONDITION OF CHURCH IN MIDDLE AGES. 27 
 
 only interest lies in their universality, and in demonstrating 
 how resultless was the unceasing effort to remove the un- 
 eflfacable plague-spot. 
 
 If the irregular, though permanent, connections which 
 everywhere prevailed had been the only result of the pro- 
 hibition of marriage, there might perhaps have been little 
 practical evil flowing from it, except to the Church itself and 
 to its guilty members. When the desires of man, however, 
 are once tempted to seek through unlawful means the relief 
 denied to them by artificial rules, it is not easy to set bounds 
 to the unbridled passion which, irritated by the fruitless 
 attempt at repression, are no longer restrained by a law which 
 has been broken, or a conscience which has lost its power. 
 The records of the Middle Ages are accordingly full of the 
 evidences that indiscriminate license of the worst kind pre- 
 vailed throughout every rank of the hierarchy. The subject is 
 too repulsive to be presented in all its loathsome details, 
 but one or two allusions may be permitted as completing the 
 picture of the moral condition of the medieval Church. 
 
 The abuse of the awful authority given by the altar and 
 the confessional was a subject of sorrowful and indignant de- 
 nunciation in too many synods for a reasonable doubt to be 
 entertained of its frequency or of the corruption which it 
 spread through innumerable parishes. The almost entire im- 
 punity with which these and similar scandals were per- 
 petrated ted to an undisguised and cynical profligacy which 
 the severer churchmen themselves admitted to exercise a 
 most deleterious influence on the morals of the laity, who 
 thus found in their spiritual guides the exemplars of evil. 
 Chaucer, with his wide range of observation and shrewd 
 native sense, was not likely to let a matter so important 
 escape him, and in the admirable practical sermon which 
 forms his " Persone's Tale " he records the conviction which 
 every pure-minded man felt with regard to the demoralizing 
 tendency of the sacerdotal licentiousness of the time. -TJ^qmas 
 of Cantinpre, indeed, one of the early lights of the Dominican 
 Order, is authority for a legend which represents the devil 
 as thanking the prelates of the Church for conducting almost 
 all Christendom to hell. The popular feeling on the subject
 
 28 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 perhaps receives its fittest expression in a satire on the 
 mendicant friars, written by a Franciscan novice who became 
 disgusted with the order and turned Wickliffite. The ex- 
 aggerated purity and mortification of the early followers of 
 the blessed St. Francis had long since yielded to the tempta- 
 tions which attended on the magnificent success of the order ; 
 and the asceticism which had been powerful enough to 
 cause the visions of the holy Stigmata, degenerated into 
 sloth and crime which took advantage of the opportunities 
 afforded by the privileges to hear confession. 
 
 When such was the moral condition of the priesthood, and 
 such were the influences which they cast upon the flocks 
 entrusted to their guidance, it is not to be wondered at if those 
 who deplored so disgraceful a state of things, and whose re- 
 spect for the canons precluded them from recommending the 
 natural and appropriate remedy of marriage, should regard 
 an organized system of concubinage as a safeguard. How- 
 ever deplorable such an alternative might be in itself, it was 
 surely preferable to the mischief which the unquenched and 
 ungoverned passions of a pastor might inflict upon his parish ; 
 and the instances of this were too numerous and too glaring 
 to admit of much hesitation in electing between the two evils. 
 Even Gerson, the leader of the mystic ascetics, who recorded 
 his unbounded admiration for the purity of celibacy in his 
 Dialogus Naturae et Sophiae de Castitate Clericorum, saw 
 and appreciated its practical evils, and had no scruple in 
 recommending concubinage as a preventive, which, though 
 scandalous in itself, might serve to prevent greater scandals. 
 'it therefore requires no great stretch of credulity to believe 
 the assertion of Sleidan that in some of the Swiss Cantons 
 it was the custom to oblige a new pastor on entering upon his 
 functions to select a concubine, as a necessary protection to 
 the virtue of his female parishioners, and to the peace of the 
 families entrusted to his spiritual direction. Indeed, we 
 have already seen, on the authority of the Council of Pa- 
 lencia in 1322, that such a practice was not uncommon in 
 
 Even supposing that this fearful immorality were not 
 attributable to the immutable laws of nature revenging 
 themselves for their attempted violation, it could readily be
 
 MORAL CONDITION OF CHURCH IN MIDDLE AGES. 29 
 
 explained by the example set by the central head. Scarcely 
 had the efforts of Nicholas and Gregory put an end to 
 sacerdotal marriage in Rome when the morals of the Roman 
 clergy became a disgrace to Christendom. 
 * * * 
 
 What were the influences of the papal court in the next 
 century may be gathered from the speech which Cardinal 
 Hugo made to the Lyonese, on the occasion of the departure 
 of Innocent IV, in 1251, from their city, after a residence 
 of eight years : " Friends, since our arrival here we have 
 done much for your city. When we came, we found here 
 three or four brothels. We leave behind us one. We must 
 own, however, that it extends without interruption from the 
 eastern to the western gate" the crude cynicism of which 
 greatly disconcerted the Lyonese ladies present. Robert 
 Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln, therefore only reflected the 
 popular conviction when, on his deathbed in 1253, inveighing 
 against the corruption of the Papal Court, he applied to it 
 the lines: 
 
 Ejus avaritiae totus non sufficit orbis, 
 Ejus luxuriae meretrix non sufficit omnis. 
 
 A hundred years later saw the popes again in France. For 
 forty years they had bestowed on Avignon all the benefits, 
 moral and spiritual, arising from the presence of the vice- 
 gerent of Christ, when Petrarch recorded, for the benefit of 
 friends whom he feared to compromise by naming, the im- 
 pression produced by his long residence there in the house- 
 hold of a leading dignitary of the Church. Language seems 
 too weak to express his abhorrence of that third Babylon, that 
 hell upon earth, which could furnish no Noah, no Deucalion 
 to survive the deluge that alone could cleanse its filth, and 
 yet he intimates that fear compels him to restrain the full ex- 
 pression of his feelings. Chastity was a reproach and li- 
 centiousness a virtue. The aged prelates surpassed their 
 younger brethren in wickedness as in years, apparently con- 
 sidering that age conferred upon them the license to do that 
 from which even youthful libertines shrank, while the vilest 
 crimes were the pastimes of pontifical ease. Juvenal and 
 Brantome can suggest nothing more shameless or more 
 foul.
 
 30 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 Note: After such facts and such public testimony to the 
 truth of all that history records against enforced celibacy, it is 
 little wonder that honest men are filled with contempt and 
 disgust for the church which still defends and even enforces 
 this system among its clergy. 
 
 Henry Hildebrand Canossa. 
 
 Milraan's Latin Christianity. 
 
 The great contest between the temporal and spiritual powers 
 in the Middle Ages reached its climax in the struggle between 
 King Henry IV and Pope Hildebrand. It originated in the con- 
 fusion which prevailed in those days on the question of the 
 powers of the Church and the province of the State, Had 
 Hildebrand adhered to the word of Him whom he claimed to 
 represent and who said " My kingdom is not of this world," 
 he would not have arrogated to himself the right to dictate even 
 in temporal matters to the rulers of this world. 
 
 By the Pope's claiming for himself the right to rule in 
 matters purely political and temporal, demanding that his bish- 
 ops rule as princes, it came to pass that one and the same per- 
 son was both the temporal ruler of a province and also the 
 spiritual guide of the people. Imagine a Roman Catholic arch- 
 bishop to hold the office of Governor of the state of New York, 
 and you have the situation. The emperor claimed the right 
 to appoint such a prince because he was his vassal ; the pope 
 demanded the right to fill such a vacancy because he was his 
 bishop. Hence the conflict. 
 
 Let the student of history attentively read the description 
 which Milman gives us in such a masterful manner of this most 
 remarkable scene at Canossa, and let him learn how sad and dis- 
 astrous are the results which must follow the usurpation, by any 
 church, of temporal power. 
 
 It is important carefully to observe the ground which 
 Hildebrand took in that manifesto of war of war disguised 
 under the words of reconciliation: whether the lofty moral 
 assertion that he was placed on high to rebuke the unchristian 
 acts of kings, or even to assert the liberty of their oppressed 
 subjects; or the lower, the questionable right to confer bene- 
 fices, and the king's disobedience in ecclesiastical matters to 
 the See of Rome. 
 
 " Deeply and anxiously weighing the responsibilities of the 
 trust committed to us by St. Peter, we have with great hesi- 
 tation granted our apostolic benediction, for it is reported
 
 HENRY HILDEBRAND CANOSSA. 31 
 
 that thou still boldest communion with excommunicated per- 
 sons. If this be true, the grace of the benediction avails me 
 nothing. Seek ghostly council of some sage priest, and per- 
 form the penance imposed upon thee." He proceeds to re- 
 prove the king for the hypocritical submissiveness of his let- 
 ters and the disobedience of his conduct. The grant of the 
 Archbishop Ric of Milan, without waiting the decision of 
 the Apostolic See, the investiture of the bishoprics of Fermo 
 and Spoleto made to persons unknown to the pope, were acts 
 of irreverence to St. Peter and his successor. " The apos- 
 tolic synod over which he presided this year thought fit in the 
 decay of the Christian religion to revert to the ancient disci- 
 pline of the Church, that discipline on which depends the 
 salvation of man. This decree (however some may presume 
 to call it an insupportable burden or intolerable oppression) 
 we esteem a necessary law; all Christian kings and people 
 are bound directly to accept and observe it. As thou art 
 the highest in the dignity and power, so shouldest thou sur- 
 pass others in devotion to Christ. If, however, thou didst 
 consider this abrogation of a bad custom hard or unjust to 
 thyself, thou shouldest have sent to our presence some of the 
 wisest and most religious of thy realm to persuade us, in our 
 condescension, to mitigate its force in some way not incon- 
 sistent with the honor of God and the salvation of men's souls. 
 We exhort thee, in our parental love, to prefer the honor of 
 Christ to thine own, and to give full liberty to the Church, the 
 spouse of God." Hildebrand then alludes to the victory of 
 Henry over the Saxons, with significant reference to the date 
 of Saul, whom success in war led into fatal impiety. 
 
 The date of this letter, when written and when received, 
 is not absolutely certain ; it was coupled with, or immediately 
 followed by, a peremptory summons to Henry to appear in 
 Rome to answer for all his offenses before the tribunal of the 
 Pope and before a synod of ecclesiasts ; if he should refuse 
 or delay, he was at once to suffer the sentence of excom- 
 munication. The 22d of February was the day appointed 
 for his appearance. 
 
 Thus the King, the victorious King of the Germans, was 
 solemnly cited as a criminal to answer undefined charges, 
 to be amenable to laws which the judge had assumed the
 
 32 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 right of enacting, interpreting, enforcing by the last penalties. 
 The whole affairs of the empire were to be suspended while 
 the King stood before the bar of the imperious arbiter. No 
 delay was allowed; the stern and immutable alternative was 
 humble and instant obedience, or that sentence which involved 
 deposition from the empire, eternal perdition. 
 
 In this desperate emergency one course alone seemed left 
 open. In Germany the idea of the temporal sovereign was 
 but vague, indistinct, and limited; he was but the head of an 
 assemblage of independent princes, his powers, if not legally, 
 actually bounded by his ability to enforce obedience. The 
 Caesra was but an imposing and magnificent title which Teu- 
 tonic pride gloried in having appropriated to its sovereign, 
 but against which the old Teutonic independence opposed a 
 strong, often invincible resistance. The idea of the pope was 
 an integral part of German Christianity; dread of excom- 
 munication part of the faith, to question which was a bold 
 act of infidelity. 
 
 It was only then by invalidating the title of the individual 
 pope that he could be lawfully resisted, or his authority 
 shaken in the minds of the multitude. It was a daring de- 
 termination, but it was the only determination to which 
 Henry and his ecclesiastical counselors could well have re- 
 course, to depose a Pope who had thus declared war, even 
 to the death, against him. Not a day was to be lost ; if the 
 pope were still pope on the fatal 22d of February, the ir- 
 repealable excommunication would be passed. The legates 
 who brought this denunciatory message were dismissed with 
 ignominy. Messengers were dispatched with breathless haste 
 to summon the prelates of Germany to meet at the faithful 
 city of Worms, on Septuagesima Sunday, January 24. After 
 the death of Hanno of Cologne, Henry, knowing too well the 
 danger of that princely see in able hands, had forced into 
 it a monk named Hildorf, of obscure birth, an insignificant 
 person, feeble in mind. 
 
 On the appointed day, besides the 1 secular partisans of 
 Henry, the bishops and abbots of Germany obeyed the royal 
 summons in great numbers. Siegfried of Mentz took his 
 seat as president of the Synod. Cardinal Hugo the White, 
 the same man who had taken the lead in the election of
 
 HENRY HILDEBRAND CANOSSA. 33 
 
 Hildebrand, and commended him by the glowing panegyric 
 on his virtues to the Roman people, came forward, no doubt, 
 as pretending to represent the clergy of Rome, and arraigned 
 Pope Gregory before the Synod as the worst and wickedest 
 of men. His extravagant and monstrous charges dwelt on 
 the early life of Gregory, on the bribery and violence by 
 which he had gained the papacy, the licentiousness and the 
 flagitiousness of his life as Pope, his cruelty, his necromancy. 
 He demanded the deposition of Gregory VII. With loud and 
 unanimous acclamation the Synod declared that a man guilty 
 of such crimes (crimes of which no shadow of proof was 
 adduced, and which rested on the assertion of one himself 
 excommunicated, it was averred, for simony) had forfeiteH 
 the power of binding and loosing, he was no longer pope. 
 The renunciation of allegiance was drawn up in the strictest 
 and most explicit form. "I, ... bishop of . . . , disclaim 
 from this hour all subjection and allegiance to Hildebrand, 
 and will neither esteem nor call him pope." Two bishops 
 only, Adelbert of Wuerzburg and Herman of Metz, hesitated 
 to sign this paper. They argued that it was unjust and un- 
 canonical to condemn a bishop without a general council, 
 without accusers and defenders, and without communicating 
 the charges against him; how much more a pope, against 
 whom the accusation of a bishop, or even of an archbishop, 
 was not valid. But William of Utrecht, the boldest, the most 
 learned, and the staunchest partisan of Henry, offered them 
 the alternative of disclaiming their allegiance to the King or 
 affixing their signature. To this force they yielded an un- 
 willing approbation. 
 
 The letter of Henry to the Pope, conveying the decree of 
 the council, was couched in the most arrogant and insulting 
 terms, and so neutralized the bitter truths which, more calmly 
 expressed, might have wrought on impartial minds, if such 
 there were. " Henry, not by usurpation, but by God's ordi- 
 nance, King, to Hildebrand, no longer pope, but the false 
 monk." It accused him of the haughtiness with which he 
 tyrannized over every order of the Church, and had trampled 
 archbishops, bishops, the whole clergy, under his feet. He 
 had pretended to universal knowledge as to universal power. 
 " By the authority of the priesthood, thou hast even threatened 
 
 3
 
 34 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 to deprive us of our royal authority, that priesthood to which 
 thon wast never called by Christ." " By craft thou hast got 
 money, by money influence, by influence the power of the 
 sword ; by the sword thou hast mounted to the throne of peace, 
 and from the throne of peace destroyed peace, arming subjects 
 against their rulers, bringing bishops appointed by God into 
 contempt, and exposing them to the judgment of the laity. 
 Us, too, consecrated of God, amenable to no judge but God, 
 who can be deposed for no crime but absolute apostasy, thou 
 hast ventured to assail, despising the words of that true Pope, 
 St. Peter, ' Fear God ! honor the king ! ' Thou that honorest 
 not the king, fearest not God! St. Paul held accursed 
 even an angel from heaven who should preach another gospel ; 
 this curse falls upon thee who teachest this new doctrine." 
 44 Thus accursed, then, thus condemned by the sentence of 
 all our bishops and by our own, down ! Leave the apostolic 
 throne which thou hast usurped. Let another take the chair 
 of St. Peter, one who preaches not violence and war, but the 
 sound doctrine of the holy apostle. I, Henry, by the grace 
 of God king, with all the bishops of my realm, say unto thee, 
 ' Down ! Down ! ' " 
 
 Another letter was addressed to the clergy and people of 
 Rome. In this the King accuses the Pope of having sworn to 
 deprive him of the kingdom of Italy. " Gregory would haz- 
 ard his own life, or strip the King of his life and kingdom." 
 As patrician, therefore, Henry had deposed the Pope, and 
 now commands them on our allegiance to rise up against him. 
 " Be the most loyal the first to join in his condemnation. 
 We do not ask you to shed his blood ; let him suffer life, which, 
 after he is deposed, will be more wretched to him than death ; 
 but if he resist, compel him to yield up the apostolic throne, 
 and make way for one whom we shall elect, who will have 
 both the will and the power to heal the wounds inflicted on 
 the Church by their present pastor." 
 
 The German church seemed to enter into the bold and 
 open revolt of Henry ; in Lombardy the old party of Cadalous 
 and of the married clergy, maintained and guided by Guibert 
 of Ravenna, showed equal resolution. A synod at Piacenza 
 ratified the decree of Worms. 
 
 Gregory, in the mean time, had summoned his third coun-
 
 HENRY HILDEBRAND CANOSSA. 35 
 
 cil in the Lateran. He sat among his assembled bishops. 
 The hymn had ceased which implored the descent of the 
 Holy Ghost on this great Christian assembly. The bold and 
 sudden entrance of Roland, a priest of Parma, was hardly 
 perceived amid the grave occupation to which (as genuine 
 descendants of old Romans who, when the fate of kings and 
 nations depended on their vote, usually commenced their sol- 
 emn council by consulting the augurs, and waiting for some 
 significant omen) they had surrendered their absorbed at- 
 tention. An egg had been found which, by its mysterious 
 form, portended the issue of the conflict. What seemed a 
 black serpent, the type of evil, rose, as it were, in high relief 
 and coiled around the smooth shell ; but it had struck on what 
 seemed a shield, and recoiled, bruised and twisting in a mor- 
 tal agony. On this sight sat gazing the mute ecclesiastical 
 senate. 
 
 But the voice of Roland made itself heard. "The king 
 and the bishops of Germany send this mandate. Down at 
 once from the throne of St. Peter ! Yield up the usurped 
 government of the Roman Church ! None must presume to 
 such honor but those chosen by the general voice, and ap- 
 proved by the Emperor." He turned to the amazed assembly 
 " Ye, my brethren, are commanded to present yourselves 
 at the Feast of Pentecost before the King, my master, there 
 to receive a Pope and Father; for this man is no pope, but a 
 ravening wolf." 
 
 The fiery Bishop of Porto sprang from his seat, and 
 shouted with a loud voice, " Seize him ! " Cencius, the gov- 
 ernor of the city, and his soldiers sprang forth to hew the 
 audacious envoy in pieces. Gregory interposed his own per- 
 son, protected the King's ambassador, and with difficulty re- 
 stored order. He received the documents presented by 
 Roland, and with his wonted calm dignity read the acts of 
 the councils, with the taunting letter of the King. 
 
 Murmurs of vehement indignation burst forth from the 
 whole synod; they sank again as Gregory commenced his ad- 
 dress, urging them to respect the sanctity of the place. In 
 his speech, skillfully, it may hardly be said, yet naturally, 
 his own cause was assumed to be that of the clergy, of the 
 Church, of Christianity. " These were the coming and pre-
 
 36 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 dieted days in which it behooved the clergy to show the 
 innocence of the dove, blended with the wisdom of the ser- 
 pent. The forerunner of Antichrist had risen against the 
 Church ; the dry harvest was about to be wet with the blood 
 of the saints. Now is the time when it will be shown who 
 is ashamed of his Lord, of whom the Lord will be ashamed 
 at His second coming. Better is it to die for Christ and 
 His holy laws than, by shamefully yielding to those who 
 violate and trample them under foot, to be traitors te the 
 Church; not to resist such impious men were to deny the 
 faith of Christ." With the gravity of an ancient augur 
 he proceeded to interpret the sign of the egg. The serpent 
 was the dragon of the Apocalypse raging against the Church ; 
 and in the same old Roman spirit he drew the omen of vic- 
 tory from its discomfiture. " Now, therefore, brethren, it 
 behooves us to draw the sword of vengeance; now must we 
 smite the foe of God and of His Church; now shall the 
 bruised head which lifts itself in its haughtiness against the 
 foundation of the faith and of all the churches, fall to the 
 earth, there, according to the sentence pronounced against 
 his pride, to go upon his belly and eat the dust. Fear not, 
 little flock, saith the Lord, for it is the will of your Father to 
 grant you the kingdom. Long enough have ye borne with 
 him; often enough have ye admonished him; let his seared 
 conscience be made at length to feel ! " 
 
 The whole synod replied with one voice, " Let thy wis- 
 dom, most holy Father, whom the divine mercy has raised up 
 to rule the world in our days, utter such a sentence against 
 this blasphemer, this usurper, this tyrant, this apostate, as 
 may crush him to the earth, and make him a warning to fu- 
 ture ages. . . . Draw the sword, pass the judgment, that the 
 righteous may rejoice when he sceth the vengeance, and wash 
 his hands in the blood of the ungodly." 
 
 The formal sentence was delayed, to prepare it in more 
 awful terms, till the next day. On the morning arrived let- 
 ters from many prelates and nobles of Germany and Italy 
 disclaiming the acts of the synods of Worms and Piacenza, 
 and imploring the forgiveness of the Pope for their enforced 
 assent to those decrees. The pontiff again took his seat in 
 the Lateran, encircled by no bishops and abbots. The first
 
 HENRY HILDEBRAND CANOSSA. 37 
 
 sentence fell on Siegfried of Mentz, and the prelates who had 
 concurred in the proceedings at Worms. They were sus- 
 pended from the episcopal functions, and interdicted from the 
 holy Eucharist, unless in the hour of death and after due and 
 accepted penance. Those who had assented from compulsion 
 were allowed time to make their peace with the Apostolic See. 
 The prelates who met at Piacenza were condemned to the 
 same punishment. Some other censures were spoken against 
 other prelates and nobles of the empire; but the awe-struck 
 assembly awaited in eager expectation that against the arch- 
 criminal, King Henry. The Empress Agnes was among the 
 audience ; the stern stoicism of the monastic life had even 
 wrought a mother's heart to listen to the sentence, perhaps 
 of eternal damnation, against her son. 
 
 Hildebrand commenced his sentence with an address to 
 St. Peter, and renewed protestations of the reluctance against 
 which he had been compelled to ascend the pontifical throne. 
 " In full confidence, in authority over all Christian people, 
 granted by God to the delegate of St. Peter, for the honor and 
 defense of the Church, in the name of Almighty God, the 
 Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, and by the power and 
 authority of St. Peter, I interdict King Henry, son of Henry 
 the Emperor, who in his unexampled pride has risen against 
 the Church, from the government of the whole realm of Ger- 
 many and of Italy. I absolve all Christians from the oaths 
 which they have sworn or may swear to him, and forbid all 
 obedience to him as king. For it is just that he who impugns 
 the honor of the Church should himself forfeit all the honor 
 which he seems to have; and because he has scorned the 
 obedience of a Christian, nor returned to the Lord, from 
 whom he had revolted by holding communion with the ex- 
 communicate, by committing many iniquities, and despising 
 the admonitions which, as thou knowest, I have given him 
 for his salvation, and has separated himself from the Church 
 by creating schism: I bind him, therefore, in thy name, 
 in the bonds of thy anathema, that all the nations may 
 know and may acknowledge that thou art Peter, that upon 
 thy rock the Son of the living God has built His Church, 
 and that the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." 
 
 When the Senate or the Emperors of Rome issued their
 
 38 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 mandates to the extremity of the world, they were known 
 to be supported by vast and irresistible armies. The man- 
 dates of Hildebrand were to promulgate, to execute them- 
 selves. He was master, indeed, in Rome; he might depend, 
 perhaps, on the support of his ally, the Countess Matilda; 
 he might, possibly, as a last refuge, summon the Normans, 
 an uncertain trust to his succor. But on these things he 
 seemed to disdain to waste a thought; on himself, on his 
 censures, on the self-assured righteousness of his cause, on 
 the fears of men, and doubtless on what he believed the 
 pledged and covenanted protection of the saints, of Christ, 
 of God, he calmly relied for what he would not doubt would 
 be his final triumph. 
 
 King Henry heard in Utrecht, March 27, the sentence 
 of the Pope. His first impression was that of dismay; but 
 he soon recovered himself, affected to treat it with con- 
 tempt, and determined to revenge himself by the excom- 
 munication of the Pope. The Bishops of Toul and Verdun, 
 though attached to Henry, had disapproved of the con- 
 demnation of the Pope; they secretly withdrew from the 
 city to escape the perilous office now demanded of them. 
 In William of Utrecht fidelity to the King had grown into 
 a fierce hatred of the Pope. Not merely did he utter the 
 sentence of excommunication, but followed it up with busy 
 zeal. At every opportunity, even when performing the 
 sacred office, he broke forth against the perjurer, the adult- 
 erer, the false apostle; and pronounced excommunicated, 
 not by himself alone, but by all the bishops of Germany. 
 Nor was William absolutely alone; a council at Pavia, 
 summoned by the indefatigable Guibert, met and anathema- 
 tized Gregory. 
 
 But while these vain thunders had no effect on the rigid 
 churchmen and the laity who adhered to the Pope, the ex- 
 communication of Henry was working in the depths of 
 the German mind, and mingling itself up with, and seeming 
 to hallow, all the other motives for jealousy, hatred, and 
 revenge which prevailed in so many parts of the empire. 
 A vast and formidable conspiracy began to organize itself, 
 hardly in secret. The Dukes Rudolph of Swabia, Guelf of 
 Bavaria, Berthold of Carinthia, with the Bishops of Wuerz-
 
 HENRY HILDEBRAND CANOSSA. 39 
 
 burg and Metz, were at the head of the league which com- 
 prehended men knew not whom, there was no one whom 
 it might not comprehend. The King summoned a diet at 
 Worms, but the prudent, and those conscious of sinister de- 
 signs, kept away. It separated without coming to any con- 
 clusion. A second was summoned for St. Peter's day, to 
 meet at Mentz. 
 
 But even before the diet at Worms an event had taken 
 place which had appalled all Germany the sudden death of 
 William of Utrecht. Terrible rumors of the circumstances 
 of his fate spread throughout the land, darkening, no doubt, 
 as they went on. In the delirium of his mortal sickness he 
 had reproached himself for his wicked and impious conduct 
 towards the Pope, entreated his attendants not to weary 
 themselves with the fruitless prayers for his soul irrecover- 
 ably lost. He had died, it was said, without the Holy Com- 
 munion. The blasphemer of Hildebrand had perished in an 
 agony of despair; and God had not only pronounced His 
 awful vengeance against the blasphemer himself, the cathe- 
 dral which had witnessed the ceremony of Gregory's excom- 
 munication had been struck by the lightning of heaven. 
 
 Even after death the terrible power of Gregory pursued 
 William of Utrecht. In answer to an inquiry of the Bishop 
 of Liege, the Pope sternly replied that, if William of 
 Utrecht had knowingly communicated with the excommuni- 
 cated Henry (and of this fact and of his impenitence there 
 could be no doubt), the inexorable interdict must follow him 
 beyond the grave. Unabsolved he lived and died, there was 
 no absolution after death; no prayers, no sacrifices, no alms 
 could be offered for William of Utrecht. 
 
 Henry looked abroad into the Empire, which, but the 
 year before his victory at Hohenburg, had awed at least 
 into outward peace, and where the obsequious clergy at 
 Worms had seemed to join him almost with unanimity in his 
 defiance of Hildebrand. On every side he now saw hostility, 
 avowed or secret, conspiracy, desertion; the princes medi- 
 tating revolt, the prelates either openly renouncing or shaken 
 in their allegiance. Herman of Metz had released some of 
 the Saxon chieftains committed to his charge; he was evi- 
 dently assuming the rank of head of the Hildebrandine party
 
 40 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 among the ecclesiastics of Germany. Henry had threatened 
 to revenge himself by marching at once and occupying Metz, 
 but had been obliged to abandon that decisive measure. 
 The defection of Otho of Nordheim, to whom the final sup- 
 pression of the Saxon rebellion had been entrusted, and who 
 at least had listened to the overtures of the insurgents, was 
 still more embarrassing, and broke up all his warlike plans. 
 At Mentz the assembly both of prelates and nobles was 
 more numerous than at the second assembly summoned at 
 Worms; but the leaders of the opposition whom Henry had 
 hoped either to gain or overawe, and whose attendance, sink- 
 ing from the imperious language of command, he had con- 
 descended to implore, still kept aloof, and, without declaration 
 of hostility, maintained a sullen but menacing neutrality. 
 Yet enough appeared at the diet to show the dreadful effects 
 to be apprehended from the approaching conflict, and the 
 nature of the resistance which was to be encountered by the 
 King. Throughout Germany house was divided against 
 house, family against family, kindred against kindred. Udo, 
 Archbishop of Treves, the third of the great Rhenish prelates, 
 had passed the Alps to make his peace with Gregory ; he had 
 been received with courtesy, and had yielded himself up ab- 
 solutely to the spell of Hildebrand's commanding mind. His 
 conduct on his return was sufficiently expressive. With cold 
 determination he refused to hold any intercourse with nis 
 brother metropolitans, the excommunicated Siegfried and 
 Hildorf of Cologne, and with the other bishops of Henry's 
 party. Only by the express permission of the Pope would he 
 venture into the infected presence of the excommunicated 
 King himself, in order to give him good council. He shrank 
 from the sin and condemnation of eating with him, or join- 
 ing him in prayer. The contagion of fear and aversion 
 spread into the palace of Henry. The ecclesiastics shrank 
 away one by one, lest they should be defiled by the royal 
 intercourse. To the King's repeated commands, to his 
 earnest entreaties that they would return, they answered that 
 it was better to lose the royal favor than endanger their 
 souls. The more ardent and resolute of Henry's party were 
 excited to the utmost fury; and they urged the King to draw 
 at once the sword committed him by God, to chastise the re- 
 bellious prelates and his other contumacious subjects.
 
 HENRY HILDEBRAND CANOSSA. 41 
 
 But Henry felt the ebbing away of his strength. Every- 
 thing seemed blasted with a curse and turned against him. 
 His last hold on the fears of the Saxons was that he still had 
 in his power some of their more formidable leaders. He 
 issued orders to use the utmost vigilance for their detention. 
 Of these the most dangerous, and, as most dangerous most 
 hateful to Henry, was Burchard, Bishop of Halberstadt, 
 whom Henry determined to send to Hungary for safer cus- 
 tody. On his descent of the Danube a bold and adventurous 
 partisan contrived the liberation of the bishop: Burchard 
 found his way to Saxony. The King's measures began to be 
 those of a man in utter despair, wild, inconsistent, passionate. 
 He at once changed his policy. He determined to have the 
 merit of granting freedom to those whom he could not hope 
 to detain in prison. To the Bishops of Magdeburg, Merse- 
 burg and Meissen, to Duke Magnus and the Palatine Fred- 
 erick, he sent word that, though by the laws of the empire 
 he would be justified in putting them to death, yet, out of 
 respect for their exalted rank, he would not merely release 
 them on the promise of their fidelity, but would reward that 
 fidelity with the utmost liberality. They met hypocrisy with 
 hypocrisy and solemnly swore fidelity. They were brought to 
 Mentz to receive their liberation from Henry himself; but 
 he was defeated even in this measure. A fray took place in 
 the city between the followers of the Bishop of Bamberg and 
 those of a rival ecclesiastic; the prisoners escaped in the 
 confusion. 
 
 An expedition into Saxony through Bohemia ended in 
 total and disgraceful failure. The King, instead of repelling 
 his rebellious subjects, only by good fortune effected an ig- 
 nominious retreat, and fled to Worms. 
 
 Hildebrand, in the mean time, neglected none of his own 
 means of warfare, that warfare conducted not on the battle- 
 field, but in the hearts and souls of men, which he felt himself 
 to command, and knew how to sway to his purpose. Words 
 were his weapons, but words which went to the depths of the 
 human mind, and shook almost every living man with fear. 
 There were two classes, the churchmen and the vulgar, 
 which comprehended the larger part of the human race; to 
 both he spoke the fit and persuasive language. He addressed
 
 42 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 a spiritual manifesto to all Christendom, but more especially 
 to the bishops and clergy. He reverted to his former af- 
 fection for Henry, the love with which even when a deacon 
 he had warmed his youth. He had continued his earnest 
 admonitions in mature age, but Henry had only returned 
 evil for good, had lifted up his heel against St. Peter. He 
 commanded the bishops to urge the contumacious King to 
 repentance, but, " If he prefers the devil to Christ, and ad- 
 heres to his simoniacal and excommunicated counselors, the 
 bishops, the Pope himself, must manfully discharge their 
 duty. They must enforce upon all, clergy and laity, the per- 
 emptory obligation of avoiding all intercourse whatever with 
 the excommunicated, all intercourse which was death to the 
 souls of those wretched men and to their own." 
 
 In a letter to Herman of Metz he pressed this doctrine 
 with more relentless rigor. "All who have communicated 
 with the excommunicated King, if King he might be called, 
 by that act have themselves incurred excommunication." 
 Such were the doctrines of him who assumed to represent 
 the Prince of Peace ! " But there were those who denied 
 his right to excommunicate a King; though their folly de- 
 served it not, he would condescend to answer." What, then, 
 was his answer? One of the most audacious fictions of the 
 Decretals; an extract from a charge delivered by St. Peter 
 to Clement of Rome; the deposition of Childebert by Pope 
 Zacharias ; certain sentences of Gregory the Great intended to 
 protect the estates of the Church and anathematizing all, even 
 kings, who should usurp them ; finally, the memorable example 
 of St. Ambrose and Theodosius the Great. " Why is the 
 King alone excepted from that universal flock committed to 
 the guardianship of St. Peter? If the Pope may judge spir- 
 itual persons, how much more most secular persons give an 
 account of their evil deeds before his tribunal ! Think they 
 that the royal excels the episcopal dignity? the former the 
 invention of human pride, the latter of divine holiness; the 
 former ever coveting vainglory, the latter aspiring after 
 heavenly light. ' The glory of a king,' St. Ambrose says, 
 ' to that of a bishop is as lead to gold.' Constantine the 
 Great took his seat below the lowest bishop, for he knew that 
 God resisted the proud, but giveth grace to the humble."
 
 HENRY HILDEBRAND CANOSSA. 43 
 
 The humility of Hildebrand ! He then peremptorily forbade 
 all bishops to presume to grant absolution to Henry, or to 
 enter into communion with him. " The consecration of a 
 bishop who communicates with the excommunicate is an 
 execration." 
 
 A third letter, to the German people, commanded them, 
 if the King did not immediately repent, dismiss his evil coun- 
 selors, acknowledge that the Church was not subject to him 
 as a handmaid, but superior as a mistress, and abandon those 
 usages which have been established in a spirit of pride against 
 the liberty of the holy Church (the investiture), to proceed 
 at once to the election of a new sovereign, a sovereign 
 approved by the Pope. He anticipates the embarrassment of 
 their oath sworn to the Empress Agnes. She, no doubt, when 
 Henry shall be deposed, will give her consent ; the Pope would 
 absolve them from their oath. 
 
 The diet met at Tribur, near Darmstadt. Thither came 
 Rudolph of Swabia, Otho of Saxony, Guelf of Bavaria, the 
 two former rivals for the throne, if it should be vacant by tfie 
 deposition of Henry. All the old enemies, all the revolted 
 friends, the bishops who had opposed, the bishops who had 
 consented, some even who had advised his lofty demeanor 
 towards the Pope appeared drawn together by their ambition, 
 by their desire of liberty or of power, by their fears and by 
 their hopes of gain or advancement, by their conscientious 
 churchmanship, or their base resolution to be on the stronger 
 side. Already in Ulm, where the diet at Tribur had been 
 agreed upon, Otho of Constance had made his peace with the 
 Church; the feeble Siegfried of Metz did the same. The 
 Bishops of Verdun, Strassburg, Liege, Munster, and 
 Utrecht obtained easier absolution, some of them having 
 from the first disapproved of the King's proceedings. 
 
 The legates of the Pope, Sighard, Patriarch of Aquileia, 
 and Altman, Bishop of Passau, whose life had been endan- 
 gered in the suppression of the married clergy with many 
 laymen of rank who had embraced the monastic life, ap- 
 peared to vindicate the Pope's right to excommunicate the 
 King, and to sanction the election of a new sovereign. 
 These men kept themselves in severe seclusion from all 
 who, since his excommunication, had held the slightest in-
 
 44 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 tercourse by word or deed with the King. They avoided 
 with equal abhorrence all who communicated, even in prayer, 
 with married or simoniacal clergy. 
 
 For seven days the conclave sat in high and independent 
 and undisturbed deliberation on the crimes of the Emperor; 
 the sins of his youth, by which he had disgraced the maj- 
 esty of the empire; the injuries which he had inflicted on 
 individuals and the public weal; his devotion to base-born 
 counselors and his deliberate hostility to the nobles of the 
 realm; his having left the frontiers open to barbarous en- 
 emies, while he was waging cruel war on his subjects; the 
 state of the empire which he had inherited flourishing in 
 peace and wealth, but which was now in the most wretched 
 condition, laid waste by civil war ; the destruction of churches 
 and monasteries and the confiscation of the estates for the 
 maintenance of a lawless army ; and the building of fortresses 
 to reduce his free-born liegemen to slavery. Widows 
 and orphans were without protection, the oppressed and 
 calumniated without refuge; the laws had lost their author- 
 ity, the manners their discipline, the Church her power, the 
 state her dignity. Thus, by the recklessness of one man, 
 things sacred and profane, divine and human, right and 
 wrong, were in confusion and anarchy. For these great 
 calamities one remedy alone remained, the election of an- 
 other king, who should restrain the general license and 
 bear the weight of the tottering world. The right of the 
 Pope to separate the King from the communion of the 
 faithful was fully recognized; even if the Pope had passed 
 such sentence unjustly, no Christian could communicate 
 with the interdicted person till reconciled to the Church. 
 
 On the other side of the Rhine, at Oppenheim, the de- 
 serted Henry, with a few armed followers, a very few faith- 
 ful nobles, and still fewer bishops, kept his diminished and 
 still dwindling court. The Rhine flowed between these 
 strangely contrasted assemblies. The vigor of Henry's 
 character seemed crushed by the universal defection. There 
 was no dignity in his humiliation. Even with his imperfect 
 sense of kingly duty and his notions of kingly power the 
 terrible truth of some of these accusations may have de- 
 pressed his conscience. Whatever his offenses against the
 
 HENRY HILDEBRAND CANOSSA. 45 
 
 Pope, he could not wonder at the alienation of his subjects. 
 He sank to abject submission. Day after day came his 
 messengers offering concession on concession, the redress 
 of all grievances, the amendment of all errors, the promise 
 to efface by his future benefits the memory of all past in- 
 juries. He was ready to do no public act without con- 
 sulting the great council of the realm; he would even 
 surrender up his power, place the government in other 
 hands, if they would leave him the royal name and dignity 
 which could not be taken away without degrading the crown 
 of Germany in the eyes of men. For the fulfillment of these 
 terms he offered any oaths and any hostages demanded by 
 the diet. 
 
 The conclave coldly replied that they could have no faith 
 in his promises; on every favorable opportunity he had 
 broken, like spiders' webs, the solemn oaths which he had 
 pledged before God. They had been patient too long. Their 
 religious reverence for their allegiance had made them en- 
 dure the dissolution of all order in the state, the loss of 
 peace in all the churches of the realm, the majesty of the 
 empire subverted, the dignity of the public morals de- 
 based, the laws suspended, the ruin of justice and piety. 
 As long as his temporal life was concerned, they had borne 
 all this out of respect for their oath of fealty ; but now that 
 he was cut off by the sentence of the Pope from the 
 Church of God, it would be madness not to seize the hour 
 of deliverance. It was their fixed determination, therefore, 
 without delay to provide " a man to go before them and 
 to wage the war of the Lord," to the destruction of his 
 pride who had lifted himself against the justice and truth of 
 God and the authority of the Roman Church. 
 
 The treacherous Archbishop of Mentz had given orders 
 to collect all the boats upon the Rhine, in order to attack 
 Henry at Oppenheim, to seize his person, disperse his 
 followers, and by one decisive blow to end the contest. But 
 the partisans of Henry and Henry himself drew courage 
 from the desperate state of their affairs. They boldly 
 manned the shores, and bade defiance to their enemies. The 
 confederates shrank from the conflicts; some were not pre- 
 pared for the last extremity of arms; others, remembering
 
 46 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 Hohenburg, might dread the issue of a battle even at such 
 an advantage. But this was a transient gleam of courage 
 and success; the consciousness of his weakness returned; 
 Henry was at the mercy of his revolted subjects. He had 
 but to accept the hard terms which they might be pleased 
 to impose. The terms were these: the whole affair was 
 to be reserved for the decision of the Supreme Pontiff, who 
 was to hold a council at Augsburg on the Feast of the 
 Purification in the ensuing year. In the meantime, Henry 
 was to declare his unreserved subjection and submission to 
 the Pope, to dismiss his army, and live as a private man at 
 Spires, with no ensigns of royalty, performing no act of 
 kingly authority, not presuming to enter a church, and hold- 
 ing no intercourse with his excommunicated counselors. He 
 was to deliver the city of Worms to its bishop, to disband 
 the garrison, and to bind the citizens by an oath to commit 
 no act of insult or rebellion against their prelate. If the 
 King was not absolved from the ban of excommunication 
 before the full year expired from the date of his sentence 
 (in the same month of February in which fell the Feast of the 
 Purification), he forfeited irrevocably all right and title to 
 the throne; his subjects were released from their allegiance. 
 
 Henry bowed his head before his fate. He dismissed 
 his counselors ; the Bishops of Cologne, Strassburg, Bam- 
 berg, Basle, Spires, Lausanne, Zeitz, and Osnabrueck were 
 left to make their peace as they could with the Pope. Even 
 his favorite counts, Ulric of Cosheim and Eberhard of Nel- 
 lenburg, were obliged to depart. He disbanded his troops, 
 yielded up faithful Worms to its triumphant bishop, retired 
 to Spires, and he who had been born, as it were, a King, 
 who could have had no recollection of the time in which 
 he was not honored with the name and ensigns of royalty, 
 sank into a private station. 
 
 But in that intolerable condition he could not remain; 
 he must determine on his future course, whatever might be 
 the end. It was better to confront the inexorable Pope, to 
 undergo, if it must be undergone, the deep humiliation of 
 submission in Italy, rather than in the diet of the empire, 
 in the face, amid the scorn and triumph, of his revolted 
 subjects. He resolved to anticipate the journey of the Pope
 
 HENRY HILDEBRAND CANOSSA. 47 
 
 to Germany. Udo of Treves, his adversary, consented to 
 be his messenger to solicit the Pope's permission to make 
 his act of submission in Rome rather than at Augsburg. 
 Udo's journey was stopped at Piacenza. The enemies of 
 Henry had anticipated his message to the Pope. Hildebrand 
 declared his intention to hold the court at Augsburg; how- 
 ever difficult and inconvenient the journey before the 8th of 
 January, he should be at Mantua. 
 
 Nature seemed to conspire with the Pope and with his 
 enemies against the fallen King. So hard a winter had 
 not been known for years; from Martinmas to the middle 
 of April the Rhine was frozen, so as to be passable on foot. 
 The Dukes of Bavaria and Carinthia, the enemies of Henry, 
 commanded and jealously watched the passes of the Alps. 
 With difficulty Henry collected from still diminished par- 
 tisans sufficient money to defray the expenses of his journey. 
 With his wife and infant son, and one faithful attendant, he 
 left Spires, and turned aside into Burgundy in hopes of find- 
 ing hospitality and aid. He reached Besanqon before Christ- 
 mas Day. Willianr of Burgundy entertained him with 
 courtesy. He passed Christxias in Besanqon with something 
 approaching to royM st/Le. From Besanqon he made his 
 way to Geneva, and crossed the Rhone, to the foot of 
 Mont Cenis. There he was met by his mother-in-law Ade- 
 laide, the powerful Marchioness of Susa, and her son 
 Amadeus. They received him with an outward show of 
 honor ; but, taking advantage of his extreme necessity, they de- 
 manded the cession of five rich bishoprics as the price of his 
 free passage through their territories. This demand might 
 seem an insidious endeavor to commit him still further with 
 the Pope by forcing him to exercise or transfer in a simoni- 
 acal manner the contested power of investiture. Henry was 
 glad to extricate himself by the sacrifice of a rich district 
 which he possessed in Burgundy. 
 
 But the Alps were still between him and Italy. The pas- 
 sage of Mont Cenis, notwithstanding the hardier habits of 
 the time, was always a work of peril and difficulty; the 
 unusual severity of the winter made it almost desperate. 
 Vast quantities of snow had fallen; the slippery surface, 
 where it had hardened, was not strong enough to bear; the
 
 48 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 ascent seemed impracticable. But the fatal day was hasten- 
 ing on; the King must reach Italy, or forfeit his crown for- 
 ever. At a large cost they hired some of the mountaineers, 
 well acquainted with the paths, to go before and cut some- 
 thing like a road through the snow for the King and his 
 few followers. So they reached with great labor the sum- 
 mit of the path. The descent seemed impossible ; it looked 
 like a vast precipice, smooth and almost sheer. But the 
 danger must be overcome. Some crept down on their hands 
 and knees; some clung to the shoulders of the guide, and 
 so sliding and at times rolling down the steeper declivities, 
 reached the bottom without serious accident. The queen and 
 her infant son were drawn down in the skins of oxen, as 
 in sledges. Some of the horses were lowered by various 
 contrivances, some with their feet tied allowed to roll from 
 ledge to ledge. Many were killed, many maimed; few 
 reached the plain in a serviceable state. 
 
 No sooner was the King's unexpected arrival made known 
 in Italy than the princes and the bishops assembled in great 
 numbers and received him with the highest honors ; in a few 
 days he found himself at the head of a formidable army. 
 The great cause of his popularity with so many of the 
 Lombard nobility and the prelates was the notion that he 
 had crossed the Alps to depose the Pope. All, and they 
 were neither few and without power, who were excom- 
 municated by Hildebrand, looked eagerly for vengeance. 
 But Henry could not pause to plunge into this new warfare 
 where even in Lombardy he would have encountered half 
 the magnates and people. He could not imperil the throne 
 of Germany. He must obtain the absolution from his ex- 
 communicator before the fatal 25th of February. 
 
 The Pope, meantime, accompanied by his powerful pro- 
 tectress, Matilda of Tuscany, and by the Bishop of Vercelli, 
 had crossed the Apennines on his way to Mantua. The 
 news of Henry's descent into Italy arrested his march. Un- 
 certain whether he came as a humble suppliant or at the 
 head of an army (Gregory well knew the state of Lombardy), 
 he immediately turned aside, and took up his abode in Ca- 
 nossa, a strong fortress belonging to Matilda. 
 
 To Canossa first came in trembling haste many of the
 
 HENRY HILDEBRAND CANOSSA. 49 
 
 nobles and prelates who had been included under the ban 
 of excommunication, and whom Henry had been forced to 
 dismiss from his service. Most of them had been so for- 
 tunate as to elude the guard set to watch the passes of the 
 Alps. Dietrich, Bishop of Verdun, one of the most faith- 
 ful and irreproachable of Henry's partisans (he had not 
 concurred in his more violent proceedings), had been seized 
 by Adelbert, Count of Calw, plundered, imprisoned, forced 
 to promise a large ransom, and not to revenge this cruel 
 outrage. Rupert of Bamberg, still more odious to the ad- 
 verse party, was taken by Guelf, Duke of Bavaria, stripped 
 of all his treasures, even to his pontifical robes, and kept in 
 close captivity; neither his own entreaties, nor those of his 
 friends, could obtain his liberation. With naked feet, and in 
 the garb of penitents, the rest appeared before the Pope. To 
 them Gregory tempered his severity by mildness. He would 
 not refuse absolution to those who confessed and lamented 
 their sins; but they must be purified as by fire, lest by too 
 great facility of pardon the atrocious and violent crimes of 
 which they had been guilty to the Apostolic See should be 
 regarded as a light sin, or as no sin at all. The bishops 
 were shut up in separate and solitary cells, with but a 
 scanty supply of food till evening. The penitence of the 
 laity was apportioned with regard to the age and their 
 strength. After this ordeal of some days, they were called 
 before the Pope and received absolution, with a mild re- 
 buke, and repeated injunctions to hold no communion with 
 their master till he should be reconciled to the Holy See. 
 
 The lenity of the Pope to his adherents may have de- 
 cided the wavering mind of Henry. It may have been de- 
 signed to heighten by contrast the haughty and inexorable 
 proceedings towards the King. Hildebrand would be content 
 with the moderate chastisement of the inferiors, from the 
 King he would exact the most degrading humiliation. Henry 
 first obtained an interview with Matilda of Tuscany. He 
 sent her to the Pope loaded with prayers and promises. She 
 was accompanied by Adelaide of Susa, the Marquis Azzo, and 
 Hugh, the Abbot of Clugny, who was supposed to possess 
 great influence over the mind of Gregory. He entreated the 
 Pope not too rashly to credit the jealous and hostile charges 
 4
 
 50 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 of the German princes, but to absolve the King at once from 
 his excommunication. The Pope coldly replied that it was 
 inconsistent with the ecclesiastical laws to pass judgment, 
 except in the presence of the accusers ; " let him appear on 
 the appointed day at Augsburg, and he shall receive rigid 
 and impartial justice." The ambassadors of Henry urged that 
 the King by no means declined, but humbly submitted to, 
 the judgment of the Pope, but in the mean time earnestly 
 desired to be released from the excommunication. The 
 possession of his crown depended upon his immediate absolu- 
 tion; he would undergo any penance, and he prepared to an- 
 swer hereafter before the Pope to any charges advanced 
 against him. The implacable Pope would yield no step of 
 his vantage ground. He might, indeed, dread the versatil- 
 ity of Henry's character, and his ready assent to the advice 
 of flattering and desperate counselors. " If he be truly 
 penitent, let him place his crown and all the ensigns of 
 royalty in my hands, and openly confess himself unworthy 
 of the royal name and dignity." This demand seemed too 
 harsh even to the ardent admirers of the Pope; they en- 
 treated him to mitigate the rigor of the sentence, " not to break 
 the bruised reed." The Pope gave a vague assent to their 
 representations. 
 
 On a dreary winter morning, with the ground deep in 
 snow, the King, the heir of a long line of emperors, was per- 
 mitted to enter within the two outer of the three walls which 
 girded to castle of Canossa. He had laid aside every mark 
 of royalty or of distinguished station ; he was clad only in the 
 thin white linen dress of the penitent, and there, fasting, he 
 awaited in humble patience, the pleasure of the Pope. But 
 the gates did not unclose. A second day .he stood, cold, 
 hungry, and mocked by a vain hope. And yet a third day 
 dragged on from morning to evening over the unsheltered 
 head of the discrowned king. Every heart was moved ex- 
 cept that of the representative of Jesus Christ. Even in the 
 presence of Gregory there were low, deep murmurs against 
 his unapostolic pride and inhumanity. The patience of Henry 
 could endure no more; he took refuge in an adjacent chapel of 
 St. Nicholas to implore, and with tears, once again, the in- 
 tercession of the aged Abbot of Clugny. Matilda was pres-
 
 HENRY HILDEBRAND CANOSSA. 51 
 
 ent; her womanly heart was melted; she joined with Henry 
 in his supplication to the abbot. " Thou alone canst ac- 
 complish this," said the Abbot to the Countess. Henry fell 
 on his knees, and in a passion of grief entreated her merci- 
 ful interference. To female entreaties and influence Gregory 
 at length yielded an ungracious permission for the King to 
 approach his presence. With bare feet, still in the garb of 
 penitence, stood the King, a man of singularly tall and noble 
 person, with a countenance accustomed to flash command 
 and terror upon his adversaries, before the Pope, a gray- 
 haired man, bowed with years, of small, unimposing stature. 
 
 The terms exacted from Henry, who was far too deeply 
 humiliated to dispute anything, had no redeeming touch of 
 gentleness or compassion. He was to appear in the place, 
 and at the time which the Pope should name, to answer the 
 charges of his subjects before the Pope himself, if it should 
 please him to preside in person at his trial. If he should 
 repel these charges, he was to receive his kingdom back 
 from the hands of the Pope. If found guilty, he was peace- 
 ably to resign his kingdom and pledge himself never to at- 
 tempt to seek revenge for his disposition. Till that time 
 he was to assume none of the ensigns of royalty, perform no 
 public act, appropriate no part of the royal revenue which 
 was not necessary for the maintenance of himself and of 
 his attendants; all his subjects were to be held released 
 from their oath of allegiance; he was to banish forever from 
 his court Rupert, Bishop of Bamberg, and Ulric, Count of 
 Cosheim, with his other evil advisers. If he should recover 
 his kingdom, he must rule henceforward according to the 
 council of the Pope, and correct whatever was contrary to 
 the ecclesiastical laws. On these conditions the Pope con- 
 descended to grant absolution, with the further provision 
 that, in case of any prevarication on the part of the King 
 on any of these articles, the absolution was null and void, 
 and in that case the princes of the empire were released from 
 all their oaths, and might immediately proceed to the election 
 of another King. 
 
 The oath of Henry was demanded to these conditions, to 
 his appearance before the tribunal of the Pope, and to the 
 safe-conduct of the Pope if he should be pleased to cross the
 
 62 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 Alps. But the King's oath was not deemed sufficient; who 
 would be his compurgators ? The Abbot of Clugny declined, 
 as taking such an oath was inconsistent with his monastic 
 vows. At length the Archbishop of Bremen, the Bishops 
 of Vercelli, Osnabrueck, and Zeitz, the Marquis Azzo and 
 others of the princes present, ventured to swear on the holy 
 reliques to the King's faithful fulfillment of all these hard 
 conditions. 
 
 But even yet the unforgiving Hildebrand had not forced 
 the King to drink the dregs of humiliation. He had de- 
 graded Henry before men, he would degrade him in the 
 presence of God; he had exalted himself to the summit of 
 earthly power, he would appeal to Heaven to ratify and 
 sanction this assumption of unapproachable superiority. 
 
 After the absolution had been granted in due form, the 
 Pope proceeded to celebrate the awful mystery of the Eu- 
 charist. He called the King towards the altar, he lifted 
 in his hands the consecrated host, and spoke these words: 
 " I have been accused by thee and by thy partisans of having 
 usurped the Apostolic See by simoniacal practices, of hav- 
 ing been guilty, both before and after my elevation to the 
 Episcopate, of crimes which would disqualify me for my 
 sacred office. I might justify myself by proof, and by wit- 
 ness of those who have known me from my youth, whose 
 suffrages have raised me to the Apostolic See. But to re- 
 move every shadow of suspicion, I appeal from human testi- 
 mony to divine. Behold the Lord's body; be this the test 
 of my innocence. May God acquit me by His judgment this 
 day of the crimes with which I am charged; if guilty, 
 strike me dead at once." He then took and ate the con- 
 secrated wafer, a pause ensued; he stood unscathed in calm 
 assurance. A sudden burst of admiration thrilled the whole 
 congregation. When silence was restored, he addressed the 
 King : " Do thou, my son, as I have done ! The princes of 
 the German Empire have accused thee of crimes heinous 
 and capital, such as in justice should exclude thee not only 
 from the administration of public affairs, but from the com- 
 munion of the church, and all in the course with the faith- 
 ful to thy dying day. They eagerly demand a solemn trial. 
 But human decisions are liable to error ; falsehood, dressed
 
 HENRY HILDEBRAND CANOSSA. 53 
 
 out in eloquence, enslaves the judgment; truth, without this 
 artificial aid, meets with contempt. As thou hast implored 
 my protection, act according to my counsel. If thou art 
 conscious of thy innocence, and assured that the accusations 
 against thee are false, by this short course, free the Church 
 of God from scandal, thyself from long and doubtful trial. 
 Take thou, too, the body of the Lord, and if God avouches 
 thy innocence, thou stoppest forever the mouths of thy ac- 
 cusers. I shall become at once the advocate of thy cause, 
 the asserter of thy guiltlessness, thy nobles will be recon- 
 ciled to thee, thy kingdom restored, the fierce tempest of 
 civil war which destroys thy empire will be allayed for- 
 ever." 
 
 Was this a sudden impulse or a premeditated plan of 
 Gregory? Was it but a blind determination to push his 
 triumph to the utmost, or was it sincere confidence in the 
 justice and certainty of this extraordinary ordeal? Had 
 he fully contemplated the dreadful alternative which he of- 
 fered to the King either boldly to deny the truth, to the 
 smallest point, of charges not like those against himself, 
 clear and specific, but vague, undefined, including his whole 
 life? In that case, did he not discern the incredible wicked- 
 ness of thus tempting the King, in his stupor and confusion, 
 to reckless perjury? Or should the King so adjure, prostrate 
 himself at the feet of the Pope, and by acknowledging his 
 guilt, deprive himself at once and forever of his crown? 
 Or did he suppose that God would indeed interpose, and as 
 tradition reported of Lothair of Lorraine, who had been 
 put to the same test by Hadrian II, and met with a speedy 
 and miserable death, so would the perjured Henry, by a still 
 more striking example, rivet forever the bonds of ecclesi- 
 astical power upon the hearts of kings? 
 
 Henry, in his amazement, hesitated, and stood in visible 
 agitation. He then retired to a short distance to consult with 
 his few followers how he should escape this terrible "judg- 
 ment of God." He then summoned his courage, and declared 
 that he must first obtain the opinion of those princes who 
 had adhered to his cause; that though this trial might be 
 satisfactory to the few present, it would not have any effect 
 on the obstinate incredulity of his absent enemies. He ad-
 
 54 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 jured the Pope to reserve the whole question for a general 
 council, in whose equitable decision he would acquiesce. 
 The Pope hardly consented to this request; but as if con- 
 scious that he had himself gone too far, he now condescended 
 to receive the King at a banquet, treated him with courtesy, 
 and gave him much grave advice. 
 
 Gregory had sent, in the mean time, Eppo, Bishop of 
 Zeitz, to announce to the Italians the absolution of the King. 
 But the Lombards had come not to see the King, but the 
 Pope humbled. When they heard the history of Henry's de- 
 basement, they broke out into furious indignation, glared on 
 the bishop with fierce and menacing looks, and loaded him 
 with insulting and contumelious language. They openly 
 avowed their contempt for the Pope's excommunication, 
 denied his right to the papacy, and renewed all the op- 
 probrious accusations of adultery and other capital offenses 
 against the pontiff. Of the King they spoke with contemp- 
 tuous bitterness; he had dishonored the royal dignity by his 
 submission to a man, a heretic and loaded with infamy; they 
 had followed him as the avenger of their wrongs, as the as- 
 serter of justice, and of ecclesiastical law; he had deserted 
 them in the hour of trial, and made his own peace by a base 
 and cowardly reconciliation. Their angry discontent spread 
 through the camp. There was a general cry that the King 
 should be compelled to abdicate the throne of which he was 
 so unworthy, and that his son Conrad should be instantly 
 proclaimed. With him at their head they would march to 
 Rome, elect another pope, who should crown the infant em- 
 peror, and annul all the acts of this apostate pontiff. 
 
 Henry sunk at heart, and perhaps now imagining that he 
 had underrated his own power, did not dare to confront the 
 tumult. He sent out some of the nobles around him to as- 
 suage the dissatisfaction, to explain the stern necessity to 
 which he had bowed, and to assure them that hereafter he 
 would apply all his thoughts to the assertion of their rights. 
 The tumult was stilled; but many of the more powerful 
 Lombards retired in disgust to their stronghold. The rest 
 received him as he came forth from that fatal Canossa with 
 cold and averted looks. No one approached him, but they 
 stood apart in small knots, discussing, in hardly suppressed
 
 THE WESTERN SCHISM. 55 
 
 murmurs, his weakness and his disgrace. He retired in 
 shame and sorrow to Reggio. 
 
 The triumph of sacerdotal Christianity in the humiliation 
 of the temporal power was complete, but it was premature. 
 Hildebrand, like other conquerors, must leave the fruits of 
 his victory to later times. He had established in the face of 
 Europe the great principle, the papal power of judging kings. 
 Henry himself seemed at first stunned by the suddenness, 
 the force of the blow; Christendom had in like manner been 
 taken by surprise. But the pause of awe and reverence was 
 but brief and transitory; a strong recoil was inevitable; the 
 elements of resistance were powerful and widely spread. The 
 common hatred of Hildebrand brought together again all 
 who, from lower or from loftier motives, abhorred his 
 tyranny: the Germans, who resented the debasement of the 
 empire ; the Italians, who dreaded the ascendency of the house 
 of Tuscany; the clergy, who, more or less conscientiously, 
 were averse to the monastic rigor of Hildebrand, those who 
 had felt or who dreaded his censures. 
 
 The Western Schism. 
 
 Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 
 
 Pope Gregory XI had given way to the importunity of the 
 Romans and had returned to Rome, arriving there in January, 
 
 1377, and taking up his residence in the Vatican. But in the 
 spring he left Rome again for Anagni, where he died in June of 
 
 1378. Upon his death there occurred that strange and humilia- 
 ting spectacle of several popes, all claiming to be rightly elected 
 by the faithful under the guidance of the Holy Ghost, each 
 with a part of Christendom adhering to him and defending his 
 claims, and yet, no one with the "infallible wisdom" to decide 
 which one was the " viceregent " of Christ, or whether there 
 were, or could be, several of these " viceregents."^ Of these 
 popes, John XXIII was convicted of incest with his brother's 
 wife and of fornication with 300 nuns, and was deposed by the 
 council of Constance ; Boniface IX sold indulgences and be- 
 came notorious for his avarice. But even before this, the 
 monstrosity of several " heads " upon this one church had 
 appeared, for in 1045 A. D. there were in Rome three reigning 
 popes at the same time, who divided the revenues and expended 
 them in excesses. How can Roman Catholics claim unity for 
 their church in the face of this disgraceful division?
 
 56 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 Gregory XI did not survive above fourteen months his 
 return to the Vatican ; and his decease was followed by the 
 great Schism of the West which distracted the Latin Church 
 above forty years. The Sacred College was then composed 
 of twenty-two cardinals. Six of these had remained at 
 Avignon; eleven Frenchmen, one Spaniard, and four Italians 
 entered the conclave in the usual form. Their choice was 
 not yet limited to the purple; and their unanimous votes 
 acquiesced in the Archbishop of Bari, a subject of Naples, 
 conspicuous for his zeal and learning, who ascended the 
 throne of St. Peter under the name of Urban VI. The 
 epistle of the Sacred College affirms his free and regular 
 election, which had been inspired, as usual, by the Holy 
 Ghost. He was adored, invested, and crowned with the 
 customary rites; his temporal authority was obeyed at Rome 
 and Avignon, and his ecclesiastical supremacy was ac- 
 knowledged in the Latin world. During several weeks the 
 cardinals attended their new master with the fairest pro- 
 fessions of attachment and loyalty, till the summer heat per- 
 mitted a decent escape from the city. But as soon as they 
 were united at Anagni and Fundi, in a place of security, they 
 cast aside the mask, accused their own falsehood and hy- 
 pocrisy, excommunicated the apostate and antichrist at Rome, 
 and proceeded to a new election of Robert of Geneva, Clement 
 VII, whom they announced to the nations as the true and 
 rightful vicar of Christ. Their first choice, an involuntary 
 and illegal act, was annulled by the fear of death and the 
 menaces of the Romans; and their complaint is justified by 
 the strong evidence of probability and fact. The twelve 
 French cardinals, above two-thirds of the votes, were masters 
 of the election; and whatever might be their provincial jeal- 
 ousies, it cannot fairly be presumed that they would have 
 sacrificed their right and interest to a foreign candidate, who 
 would never restore them to their native country. In the 
 various, and often inconsistent, narratives, the shades of 
 popular violence are more darkly or faintly colored; but the 
 licentiousness of the seditious Romans was inflamed by a sense 
 of their privileges and the danger of a second emigration. 
 The conclave was intimidated by the shouts and encompassed 
 by the arms of thirty thousand rebels; the bells of the Cap-
 
 THE WESTERN SCHISM. 57 
 
 itol and St. Peter's rang an alarm : " Death or an Italian 
 pope ! " was the universal cry. The same threat was repeated 
 by the twelve bannerets or chiefs of the quarters, in the 
 form of charitable advice; some preparations were made for 
 burning the obstinate cardinals; and had they chosen a 
 Transalpine subject, it is probable they would never have 
 departed alive from the Vatican. The same constraint im- 
 posed the necessity of dissembling in the eyes of Rome and of 
 the world. The pride and cruelty of Urban presented a more 
 inevitable danger; and they soon discovered the features of 
 the tyrant who could walk in the garden and recite his 
 breviary while he heard from an adjacent chamber six 
 cardinals groaning on the rack. His inflexible zeal, which 
 loudly censured their luxury and vice, would have attached 
 them to the stations and duties of their parishes at Rome; 
 and had he not fatally delayed a new promotion, the French 
 cardinals would have been reduced to a helpless minority in 
 the Sacred College. For these reasons, and in the hope of 
 repassing the Alps, they rashly violated the peace and 
 unity of the Church; and the merits of their double choice 
 are yet agitated in the Catholic schools. The vanity, rather 
 than the interest, of the nation determined the court and 
 clergy of France, The states of Savoy, Sicily, Cyprus, Ar- 
 agon, Castile, Navarre, and Scotland were inclined by their 
 example and authority to the obedience of Clement VII and, 
 after his decease, of Benedict XIII Rome and the principal 
 states of Italy, Germany, Portugal, England, the Low Coun- 
 tries, and the kingdoms of the north adhered to the prior 
 election of Urban VI, who was succeeded by Boniface IX, 
 Innocent VII, and Gregory XII. 
 
 From the banks of the Tiber and the Rhone the hostile 
 pontiffs encountered each other with the pen and the sworcL 
 The civil and ecclesiastical order of society was disturbed; 
 and the Romans had their full share of the mischiefs of which 
 they may be arraigned as the primary authors. They had 
 vainly flattered themselves with the hope of restoring the 
 seat of the ecclesiastical monarchy, and of relieving their 
 poverty with the tributes and offerings of the nations; but 
 the separation of France and Spain diverted the stream of 
 lucrative devotion; nor could the loss be compensated by the
 
 58 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 two jubilees which were crowded into the space of ten years. 
 By the avocations of the schism, by foreign arms and popular 
 tumults, Urban VI and his three successors were often com- 
 pelled to interrupt their residence in the Vatican. The Co- 
 lonna and the Ursini still exercised their deadly feuds. The 
 bannerets of Rome asserted and abused the privileges of a re- 
 public. The vicars of Christ, who had levied a military force, 
 chastised their rebellion with the gibbet, the sword, and the 
 dagger; and, in a friendly conference, eleven deputies of the 
 people were perfidiously murdered and cast into the street. 
 Since the invasion of Robert the Norman, the Romans had 
 pursued their domestic quarrels without the dangerous in- 
 terposition of a stranger. But in the disorders of the schism, 
 an aspiring neighbor, Ladislaus, King of Naples, alternately 
 supported and betrayed the Pope and the people. By the 
 former he was declared gonfalonier, or general, of the Church, 
 while the latter submitted to his choice the nomination of 
 their magistrates. Besieging Rome by land and water, he 
 thrice entered the capital as a barbarian conqueror, profaned 
 the altars, violated the virgins, pillaged the merchants, per- 
 formed his devotions at St. Peter's, and left a garrison in the 
 castle of St. Angelo. His arms were sometimes unfortunate, 
 and to a delay of three days he was indebted for his life and 
 crown. But Ladislaus triumphed in his turn, and it was only 
 his premature death that could save the metropolis and the 
 ecclesiastical state from the ambitious conqueror, who had as- 
 sumed the title, or at least the powers, of the King of Rome. 
 I have not undertaken the ecclesiastical history of the 
 schism; but Rome, the object of these last chapters, is 
 deeply interested in the disputed succession of her sovereigns. 
 The first counsels for the peace and union of Christendom 
 arose from the University of Paris, from the faculty of the 
 Sorbonne, whose doctors were esteemed, at least in the 
 Gallican church, as the most consummate masters of theo- 
 logical science. Prudently waiving all invidious inquiry into 
 the origin and merits of the dispute, they proposed as a heal- 
 ing measure that the two pretenders of Rome and Avignon 
 should abdicate at the same time, after qualifying the car- 
 dinals of the adverse factions to join in a legitimate election ; 
 and that the nations should subtract their obedience, if either
 
 THE WESTERN SCHISM. 59 
 
 of the competitors should prefer his own interests to that of 
 the public. At each vacancy these physicians of the Church 
 deprecated the mischiefs of a hasty choice; but the policy 
 of the conclave and the ambition of its members were deaf 
 to reason and entreaties ; and whatsoever promises were made, 
 the Pope could never be bound by the oaths of the cardinal. 
 During fifteen years the pacific designs of the university were 
 eluded by the arts of the rival pontiffs, the scruples or pas- 
 sions of their adherents, and the vicissitudes of French 
 factions that ruled the insanity of Charles VI. At length a 
 vigorous resolution was embraced; and a solemn embassy of 
 the titular patriarch of Alexandria, two archbishops, five 
 bishops, five abbots, three knights, and twenty doctors was 
 sent to the courts of Avignon and Rome to require in the name 
 of the Church and King the abdication of the two pretenders, 
 of Peter de Luna, who styled himself Benedict XIII, and of 
 Angelo Carrario, who assumed the name of Gregory XII. 
 For the ancient honor of Rome and the success of their com- 
 mission, the ambassadors solicited a conference with the mag- 
 istrates of the city, whom they gratified by a positive declara- 
 tion that the most Christian King did not entertain a wish 
 of transporting the Holy See from the Vatican, which he 
 considered as the genuine and proper seat of the successor 
 of St. Peter. In the name of the senate and people, an elo- 
 quent Roman asserted their desire to cooperate in the union 
 of the Church, deplored the temporal and spiritual calamities 
 of the long schism, and requested the protection of France 
 against the arms of the King of Naples. The answers of 
 Benedict and Gregory were alike edifying and alike de- 
 ceitful; and, in evading the demand of their abdication, 
 the two rivals were animated by a common spirit. They 
 agreed on the necessity of a previous interview; but the 
 time, the place, and the manner could never be ascer- 
 tained by mutual consent. " If the one advances," says a 
 servant of Gregory, " the other retreats ; the one appears to 
 be an animal fearful of the land, the other a creature appre- 
 hensive of the water. And thus, for a short remnant of 
 life and power, will these aged priests endanger the peace and 
 salvation of the Christian world." 
 
 The Christian world was at length provoked by their 
 obstinacy and fraud. They were deserted by their cardinals,
 
 60 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 who embraced each other as friends and colleagues ; and their 
 revolt was supported by a numerous assembly of prelates and 
 ambassadors. With equal justice the Council of Pisa de- 
 posed the popes of Rome and Avignon. The conclave was 
 unanimous in the choice of Alexander V, and his vacant seat 
 was soon filled by a similar election of John XXIII, "the most 
 profligate of mankind. But instead of extinguishing the 
 schism, the rashness of the French and Italians had given a 
 third pretender to the chair of St. Peter. Such new claims 
 of the synod and conclave were disputed; three kings, of 
 Germany, Hungary, and Naples, adhered to the cause of 
 Gregory XII ; and Benedict XIII, himself a Spaniard, was 
 acknowledged by the devotion and patriotism of that power- 
 ful nation. The rash proceedings of Pisa were corrected by 
 the Council of Constance. The Emperor Sigismund acted 
 a conspicuous part as the advocate or protector of the Cath- 
 olic Church ; and the number and weight of civil and ecclesi- 
 astical members might seem to constitute the States-general of 
 Europe. Of the three popes, John XXIII was the first victim: 
 he fled and was brought back a prisoner. The most scanda- 
 lous charges were suppressed; the vicar of Christ was only 
 accused of piracy, murder, rape, sodomy, and incest; and 
 after subscribing his own condemnation, he expiated in 
 prison the imprudence of trusting his person to a free city 
 beyond the Alps. Gregory XII, whose obedience was re- 
 duced to the narrow precincts of Rimini, descended with 
 more honor from the throne; and his ambassador convened 
 the session in which he renounced the title and authority 
 of lawful pope. To vanquish the obstinacy of Benedict XIII 
 or his adherents, the emperor in person undertook a journey 
 from Constance to Perpignon. The kings of Castile, Aragon, 
 Navarre, and Scotland obtained an equal and honorable 
 treaty. With the concurrence of the Spaniards, Benedict was 
 deposed by the council; but the harmless old man was left 
 in a solitary castle to excommunicate twice each day the 
 rebel kingdoms which had deserted his cause. After thus 
 eradicating the remains of the schism, the Synod of Con- 
 stance proceeded with slow and cautious steps to elect the 
 sovereign of Rome and the head of the Church.
 
 JOHN HUSS. 61 
 
 John Huss. 
 
 Milman's History of Latin Christianity. 
 
 Of Milman's Latin Christianity, Samuel Kendall Adams, 
 the distinguished late professor of history and president of 
 Cornell University, writes : " Of the numerous works on the 
 history of the Church in the Middle Ages this will generally be 
 found at once the most readable, the most impartial, and the 
 most satisfactory." It is true that the Decline and Fall of fhe 
 Roman Empire by Gibbon, which covers substantially the same 
 ground, is far more celebrated, but we doubt that it is read 
 nearly as much as the less pretentious, but much more readable 
 work from which the following extract on the trial, condemna- 
 tion, and martyrdom of Huss is taken. And although Milman 
 also must add his testimony to the many other truthful and 
 fair historians who, in relating the facts of the past, were 
 forced to reveal the perfidies, cruelties, and antichristian prac- 
 tices of the papacy by which she fought and, too often also, 
 destroyed these courageous confessors of Christ whose clear 
 testimony she could neither gainsay nor confute, yet, so im- 
 partial does our author deal with all these matters that no 
 less a distinguished Roman Catholic than Cardinal Newman 
 gives to his work the heartiest commendation. 
 
 The following extract in which the great herald of a better 
 and more enlightened age is portrayed as he falls beneath the 
 brute force of the ignorant, greedy, and debauched "princes" 
 of that Church which has shed more blood of the saints than 
 any other human agency, is another indictment of history 
 against Catholic brutality. 
 
 The fame of Huss traveled before him: curiosity or in- 
 terest in his doctrines triumphed over the German aversion 
 to the Bohemian. In many towns he held conferences even 
 with the clergy, and parted from them on amicable terms. At 
 Nuremberg he was met by three Bohemian nobles, who bore 
 from Spires the imperial safe-conduct, couched in the strict- 
 est and fullest terms, guaranteeing his safe entrance and his 
 safe return from Constance. John of Chlum, Wenzel of 
 Duba, Henry of Lazenbach, were charged to watch and keep 
 guard over their countryman, who traveled under the special 
 protection of the Emperor. 
 
 Not many days after the arrival of the Pope, John Huss 
 entered Constance. He was graciously received by the Pope 
 himself. Nothing was said of the ban of excommunication 
 which still hung over him : it is doubtful whether it was not 
 legally annulled by his reception before the Pope. Strong
 
 62 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 expressions are attributed to the Pope : " If he had slain my 
 brother, I would not permit, as far as is in my power, any 
 harm to be done to him in Constance." The Pope, on whom 
 religion hung so loosely, may not have had that deep aversion 
 for, he may not fully have comprehended, the bearing of the 
 Wyckliffite tenets; still less could he comprehend the stern, 
 stubborn conscientiousness which would not swerve from, and 
 which would boldly assert such opinions in the face of danger 
 or death. Noble religious fanaticism has constantly baffled 
 the reckoning of the most profound worldly sagacity. He 
 might fondly suppose the possibility of the Bohemian's sub- 
 mission to papal arguments, impressed by papal majesty; and 
 the submission of so famous a heretic to his milder admo- 
 nitions would give him overweening weight in the council. 
 But with the more keen-eyed and inflexible Italian cardinals 
 Huss was only a barbarian and heretic. They could not but 
 discern (for they had nothing to blind their instinct) the 
 vital oppugnancy of his views to the hierarchical system, 
 Huss himself could not remain in modest and inoffensive 
 privacy. Partisans, admirers, would crowd around him; 
 his zeal would not permit him in base timidity to shrink 
 from the avowal of his creed, whether by preaching in his 
 house or among his followers. The Bishop of Constance 
 admonished him, but in vain, and forbade his celebrating 
 mass while yet unabsolved. 
 
 The arrival of Stephen Palecz and Michael de Causis, 
 the bitter and implacable adversaries of Huss, with whom he 
 had been involved in fierce controversy, changed the sus- 
 pended state of affairs. These men stood forward openly as 
 his accusers. They swept away all the fairer, milder, or 
 more subtle interpretations by which Huss reconciled his 
 own doctrines with the orthodox creed, especially as regarded 
 the clergy. Huss had declared wicked popes, wicked cardinals, 
 wicked prelates, to be utterly without authority, their ex- 
 communications void, their administration of the sacraments 
 as only to be valid by some nice distinction. Palecz and de 
 Causis cast all these maxims in their native, unmitigated 
 offensiveness before the indignant hierarchy. Huss was 
 summoned, yet by a deputation which still showed respect, 
 the Bishops of Augsburg and Trent, to appear before the Con- 
 sistory of the Popes and Cardinals. He obeyed, protesting,
 
 JOHN HUSS. 63 
 
 nevertheless, that he came to render account to the Council, 
 not to the Consistory. The charges of heresy were read. 
 Huss quietly declared that he had rather die than be justly 
 condemned as a heretic. " If convinced of error, he would 
 make full recantation." He retired, but his lodging was en- 
 circled from that time by watchful sentinels. A monk was 
 let loose upon him to ensnare him with dangerous questions. 
 Huss had the shrewdness to detect in the monk, who affected 
 the utmost simplicity, one of the subtlest theologians of the 
 day. 
 
 Four weeks after his arrival at Constance, notwithstand- 
 ing his appeal to the imperial safe-conduct, notwithstanding 
 the protest of his noble Bohemian .protector, John de Chlum, 
 Huss was committed to prison in the Bishop's palace. To 
 de Chlum the Pope protested that it was done without his 
 authority. The Pope might find it expedient to disclaim such 
 an act. A congregation was summoned to hear eight articles 
 promoted by the Bohemian, Michael de Causis, against John 
 Huss. Three commissioners had been named by the Pope. 
 A more numerous commission of cardinals, bishops and Doc- 
 tors was appointed to conduct the inquiry. From his first 
 prison he was conducted to a closer and more safe one in the 
 Dominican Convent. There he fell ill, and was attended by 
 the Pope's physicians. He recovered, and in his prison wrote 
 several works, which were eagerly dispersed among his 
 brethren. 
 
 John de Chlum took bold and active measures for the 
 release of Huss. He communicated this insolent violation of 
 the imperial safe-conduct to Sigismund, who was on his way 
 from the coronation at Aix-la-Chapelle. The Emperor 
 broke into wrath. He gave orders that if the Pope and 
 cardinals did not obey his mandate, the doors of the prison 
 should be opened by force. But no one ventured to invade 
 the Dominican cloister, and the Council yet respected the 
 ordinances of the Pope and cardinals. De Chlum affixed 
 writings on all the church-doors in Constance, declaring, 
 in strong language, the imprisonment of Huss to be an 
 outrage against the Emperor; that all who had presumed to 
 violate the imperial safe-conduct, and still presumed to 
 resist the demands of the imperial ambassador for his re- 
 lease, would be called to account. 
 
 * * *
 
 64 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 The Emperor consented to violate his own safe-conduct, 
 to abandon John Huss. The Bohemian was, with the con- 
 sent of Sigismund, committed to closer custody. It was 
 understood that he was to be tried by the Council, doomed 
 by the Council, and that whatever might be the sentence 
 of the Council, it would be carried into execution by the 
 secular arm. The Council was thus further relieved from 
 debate on that question, it was out of the way of their ul- 
 terior proceedings; the rock on which they might have split 
 was avoided ; their onward course was straight, clear, open. 
 
 Breach of faith admits no excuse; perfidy is twice per- 
 fidious in an emperor. . . . Sigismund yielded, perhaps not 
 without self-reproach, certainly not without remonstrance 
 which must have galled a man of his high feeling to the 
 quick. The Bohemian lords, the Burgrave of Prague, and 
 others had already written a strong demand, which arrived 
 about this time, for the liberty of John Huss. He had been 
 proclaimed, as they averred, by Conrad, Archbishop of 
 Prague, under his seal, guiltless of the slightest word of 
 heresy. A second, still more vigorous protest had followed, 
 on his removal from the Dominican Convent, against this 
 flagrant violation of public faith. " They would deeply 
 grieve if they should hear that his august Majesty was pol- 
 luted by such enormous iniquity. Every one hereafter 
 would spurn and despise an imperial safe-conduct." 
 * * * 
 
 On the last day of May the Bohemians presented a 
 memorial to the Council. They expostulated on the neglect 
 of their former petition; they recited the declaration of 
 faith which had been disseminated throughout Bohemia by 
 the friends of Huss, asserting his full belief in all the 
 articles of the creed, his determination to defend them to 
 death, and the testimonial of the grand Inquisitor, the Bishop 
 of Nazareth, acquitting him of all heterodox opinions. They 
 demanded his release from his noisome prison, by which his 
 health was affected, and that he should be heard before the 
 Council against his calumnious enemies. The Patriarch of 
 Antioch answered coldly in the name of the Council that the 
 testimonials were of no avail till they should have undergone 
 close examination before themselves; they had no faith in 
 his statements. Yet they would condescend, as an act of
 
 JOHN HUSS. 65 
 
 grace, to grant him a public hearing; for this end he would 
 be removed from his present confinement. Sigismund so 
 expressed his approbation of the resolution to grant a hearing 
 that the partisans of Huss weakly concluded that the royal 
 favor would protect their teacher. 
 
 The Council would willingly have avoided the notoriety 
 of a public examination. Huss was visited in his cell at 
 Gotleben by the Patriarch of Antioch, by Michael de Causis, 
 and Stephen Palecz. He was urged to retract. They now, 
 however, interrogated him, as he complains, with the cap- 
 tious and ensnaring severity of inquisitors, adducing against 
 him words culled out of all his letters and discourses. 
 Palecz adduced phrases uttered in frank and careless con- 
 versation. The patriarch reproached him with the wealth 
 he had obtained, " Have you not 70,000 florins ? " His an- 
 swers were brief and cautious, " I will retract when convinced 
 of my error." 
 
 He was removed to the Franciscan Cloister. In the mean 
 time, the utmost industry had been employed in collecting 
 obnoxious passages from all his writings and from adverse 
 witnesses. The cardinals sat in council on these in order to 
 frame articles of accusation. Sigismund required that these 
 articles should be communicated to Huss. The cardinals 
 deigned to accede, not as of right, but as of favor. The 
 partisans of Huss were prepared, on the other hand, with 
 authenticated copies of all his writings to confront false ci- 
 tations, or contest unjust inferences. 
 
 On the fifth of June, John Huss was brought in chains 
 into the Council. His works were presented to him; he 
 acknowledged them for his own. The articles were read ; but 
 either the indignation of the adversaries or the zeal of his 
 partisans, or both, raised such an uproar that silence could 
 hardly be enforced. Huss calmly declared himself ready 
 to maintain his opinions by Scripture and by the Fathers. 
 Another outburst of abuse and mockery compelled the Council 
 to adjourn its proceedings. 
 
 On the morning of the seventh of June, Constance was 
 darkened by an eclipse of the sun. At Prague the eclipse was 
 total, a sinister omen to the followers of Huss. Two hours 
 after the darkness had passed away, John Huss stood again 
 before the Council. All the more distinguished Fathers sat in
 
 66 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 their order. The Emperor was on his throne ; a strong guard 
 attended to keep order. Wenzel de Duba and John de Chlum, 
 nobles, and other Bohemians watched the course of things 
 with grave solicitude. The accusers began on the perilous 
 Article of Transubstantiation. But the answer of Huss was 
 clear, distinct, unimpeachable. The Cardinal of Cambray 
 alone, as jealous of his nominalist philosophy as for his 
 orthodox religion, endeavored by a syllogism about universals 
 intelligible only according to scholastic jargon, to prove that 
 Huss must assert that the material bread remained after con- 
 secration. Huss extricated himself with address and triumph. 
 " His philosophic doctrine was that of St. Anselm." He 
 averred transubstantiation to be a perpetual miracle and so 
 exempt from all logical form. An English bishop took up the 
 Cardinal's cause. " A boy in the schools," said Huss, " might 
 answer such puerility." To the other more general charges, 
 that he had preached Wyckliffite doctrines; that he offici- 
 ated as priest when under excommunication by the Pope ; that 
 he had spoken with contempt of some of the most learned 
 prelates of the day, even the Chancellor Gerson ; that he had 
 excited tumults in Bohemia, he replied with admirable pres- 
 ence of mind and perfect self-command. Once, indeed, he 
 admitted that he had said, " Wyckliffe, I trust, will be saved ; 
 but could I think he would be damned, I would my soul were 
 with his." A burst of contemptuous laughter followed this 
 avowal, of which, however, it is not difficult to see the hidden 
 meaning. After some hours of turbulent discussion, he was 
 ordered to withdraw, under custody of the Archbishop of Riga, 
 Keeper of the Seals of the Council. 
 
 Before he was removed, the Cardinal of Cambray rose 
 and demanded whether he had not boasted that, if he had not 
 come to the Council of his own free will, neither king nor 
 emperor could have compelled his appearance. " There are 
 many nobles in Bohemia," answered Huss, " who honor me 
 with their protection. Had I not willed to come to the 
 Council they would have placed me in some stronghold be- 
 yond the power of the king or emperor." The Cardinal 
 lifted up his hand in amazement at this insolence; a fierce 
 murmur ran through the assembly. Thereat arose John 
 de Chlum: "John Huss speaks the truth; I am one of the 
 least of the nobles of Bohemia; in my castle I would have
 
 JOHN HUSS. 67 
 
 defended him for a year against all the forces of emperor 
 or king. How much more lords mightier than I, with 
 castles far more impregnable ! " The cardinals said in a 
 lower tone, " Huss, I admonish you for your safety and 
 your honor to submit to the Council, as you have promised 
 in prison." All eyes were turned upon the Emperor. 
 Sigismund rose; the purpose of his speech was that he had 
 issued the safe-conduct in order to give Huss an opportunity 
 of rendering an account of his faith before the Council. 
 The cardinals and prelates (he thanked them for it) had 
 granted him this favor, though many asserted that it was 
 beyond his power to take a heretic under his protection. 
 He counseled Huss to maintain nothing with obstinacy, but 
 to submit to the Council on all articles charged and proved 
 against him. So doing, he might return in the good graces 
 of the Council to his home, after some slight penance and 
 moderate satisfaction. " If not, the Council will know how 
 to deal with you. For myself, far from defending you in 
 your errors and in your contumacy, I will be the first to light 
 the fire with my own hands." Huss began to thank the 
 Emperor for his clemency in granting him safe-conduct. 
 The friendly interruption of John de Chlum reminded him 
 that the Emperor had charged him with obstinacy. He pro- 
 tested in God's name that he had no such intention. " He had 
 come of his own free will to Constance, determined, if better 
 instructed, to surrender his opinions." He was conducted 
 back to prison. 
 
 The next day Huss stood the third time before the 
 Council. Thirty-nine articles were exhibited against him, 
 twenty-six from his book on the Church, seven from a con- 
 troversial tract against Stephen Palecz, six from one 
 against Stanislaus of Znaym. Huss, like most reformers, 
 held the high Augustinian notion of predestination. " None 
 were members of the true Indefeasible Church but those pre- 
 destined to eternal life." On these points he appealed 
 triumphantly to the all-honored name of Augustine. None 
 dared to answer. But when this theory was applied to 
 churchmen, to prelates, to the Pope himself, and when their 
 whole authority was set on their succession not to the 
 titles, but to the virtues of the Apostles, the Council sat 
 amazed and embarrassed. "The Pontiff, who lives not the
 
 <J8 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 life of St. Peter, is no vicar of Christ but the forerunner of 
 Antichrist." A citation from St. Bernard seemed to con- 
 firm that dread sentence : " The slave of avarice is the 
 successor not of Peter, but of Judas Iscariot." The church- 
 men looked at each other and smiled, no doubt some a bitter 
 smile. In an evil moment Huss pressed his fearless logic. 
 "A king in mortal sin is no king before God." Sigismund 
 was looking out of the window. " There never," he was 
 saying, " lived a more pernicious heretic." The Cardinal of 
 Cambray roused his attention to this last perilous conclusion. 
 Huss repeated his words aloud. The Emperor only answered, 
 " There is no man that sinneth not." " What ! " burst out 
 the Cardinal, " art thou not content with degrading the ec- 
 clesiastical power, wouldst thou thrust kings from their 
 thrones ? " "A man," argued Palecz, " may be a true pope, 
 prelate, or king, though not a true Christian." " Why, then, 
 have you deposed John XXIII ? " The Emperor answered, 
 " For his notorious misdeeds." Huss had been guilty of 
 the rashness of discomforting and perplexing his adversaries. 
 The cardinals were most indignant at what Cambray de- 
 nounced as an unjust and overdrawn appeal to popular 
 animosity among them. They constantly urged that the 
 articles gave but a mild and mitigated notion of the language 
 of Huss. Huss was arraigned for this assertion : " No her- 
 etic should suffer more than ecclesiastical punishment, none 
 to be delivered to the secular arm to be punished by death." 
 Yet even Huss, and Huss at that moment, shrank from the 
 full avowal of that simple evangelic maxim. " The heretic 
 was first to be instructed fairly, mildly, humbly, out of the 
 Scriptures and by reason; if he refused to desist from his 
 error, to be punished, according to St. Augustine, in the body." 
 He acknowledged a sentence in his works, which likened 
 those who gave up a heretic to the secular arm unconvicted 
 to the Pharisees. " Whom," cried the cardinals, " meanest 
 thou by the Pharisees ? " " Those who deliver an innocent 
 man to the sword." 
 
 At the close of the session the Cardinal of Cambray urged 
 Huss, who had heard the atrocious charges adduced against 
 him, to make unqualified submission to the Council, and to 
 abjure all his errors. " If he persisted, the Council would 
 know how to proceed." The Emperor condescended to argue
 
 JOHN HUSS. 69 
 
 with him in the same tone. His two accusers, Palecz and de 
 Causis, appealed to Heaven that they were actuated by no 
 personal hostility towards Huss. , 
 
 Huss replied with firm humility that he sought instruction ; 
 he could not abjure errors of which he was not convinced. 
 Many things charged against him were forged, many per- 
 verted from their true meaning. He could not abjure those, 
 he could not sin against his conscience. He was remanded 
 to prison; the faithful Bohemian knight, John de Chlum, 
 followed to console his weary friend. 
 
 The Emperor rose : " You have heard the charges against 
 Huss proved by trustworthy witnesses, some confessed by him- 
 self. In my judgment each of these crimes is deserving of 
 death. If he does not forswear all his errors, he must be 
 burned. If he submits, he must be stripped of his preacher's 
 office and banished from Bohemia: there he would only 
 disseminate more dangerous errors. . . . The evil must 
 be extirpated root and branch. ... If any of his par- 
 tisans are in Constance, they must be proceeded against with 
 the utmost severity, especially his disciple, Jerome of 
 Prague." Sigismund had wrought himself, no doubt as an 
 excuse for his remonstrant conscience, to a fanaticism of 
 obedience to the Church. 
 
 Huss heard in his prison the Emperor's declaration. " I 
 was warned not to trust to his safe-conduct. I have been 
 under a sad delusion; he has condemned me even before 
 my enemies." 
 
 The fatal hour had now come. The Council, which as- 
 serted itself to be under the actual inspiration of the Holy 
 Ghost, could not recede without the impeachment of in- 
 difference to doctrine which itself had declared to be deadly 
 heresy, or without disavowing the right established by the 
 terrible usage of centuries of awarding capital punishment 
 for that which the Church had been so long teaching the 
 world was a mortal crime; a crime which it was the most 
 sacred duty to God and man in the priest to avenge, in the 
 temporal sovereign, at the demand of the priest, to punish 
 by fire. Huss could not retract without perjury to his own 
 conscience, without base treachery to his followers, whom 
 he had instructed, whom he had kindled to a fanatic faith 
 in that which he himself had believed, which he still believed
 
 70 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 to be the saving Gospel of Christ ; and this from the fear of 
 death, death which, as he himself was assured, as his partisans 
 had no less confidence, would secure him the martyr's crown. 
 
 A form of recantation was drawn by Cardinal Zabarella, 
 studiously mild in its terms, but of necessity an explicit re- 
 nunciation of his errors, a humble submission to the de- 
 terminations, to the definitions of the Holy Council. He 
 was to abjure, retract, revoke all his errors, and undergo 
 whatever penance the Council might decree for his soul's 
 health. 
 
 The answer of Huss was a prayer to God Almighty for 
 everlasting life, through Christ Jesus. He thanked the 
 Reverend Father, Zabarella of Florence, for his pious and 
 paternal kindness. " But if Eleazar under the old law re- 
 fused to eat forbidden fruit, lest he should sin against 
 God, and leave a bad example to posterity, how can I, a 
 priest of the new law, however unworthy, from fear of a 
 punishment, so brief and transitory, sin so heinously against 
 the Law of God, first by departure from truth, secondly by 
 perjury, thirdly by grievous scandal to my brethren? It 
 is better for me to die than by avoiding momentary punish- 
 ment to fall into the hands of God, and perhaps into everlast- 
 ing fire. I have appealed to Jesus Christ, the one all-powerful 
 and all-just Judge; to Him I commit my cause, who will 
 judge every man, not according to false witnesses and erring 
 councils, but according to truth and man's desert." 
 
 Persons of the highest rank, cardinals, prelates, the Em- 
 peror, even his adversary, Stephen Palecz, again entreated 
 him, and with tears, to depart from his stubborn resolution. 
 His answer was calm, unboastful, with nothing of the ve- 
 hemence or contemptuousness of fanaticism. He acknowl- 
 edged how hard his soul was tried; at the same time, in his 
 letters to Bohemia, some of which were publicly read in the 
 Bethlehem Chapel at Prague, and in others, addressed to the 
 University of Prague, he declared that he could forswear no 
 one of his doctrines. He had not been convinced out of 
 the Scriptures; he awaited in tranquillity the judgment of the 
 Lord. 
 
 The Council proceeded in full session to condemn the 
 doctrine of Jacob de Mies, concerning the Cup : an omen and 
 a warning! The writings of Huss were ordered to be pub-
 
 JOHN HUSS. 71 
 
 licly burned. The Council itself sent another deputation to 
 urge submission. The Emperor had been a short time 
 absent; the day before the final judgment he sent four 
 bishops, Wenzel of Duba, John de Chlum, with a still more 
 mitigated form of recantation. Huss was only to retract 
 those tenets which he acknowledged to be his own. Even 
 John de Chlum endeavored to move, or rather to strengthen 
 him. " I am but an unlettered man, unfit to counsel one so 
 learned. If you are conscious of error, be not ashamed to 
 confess it to the Council. If not, I cannot advise you to act 
 against your conscience. Bear any punishment rather than 
 renounce the truth." Huss answered that he would abandon 
 any opinion on proofs deduced from Holy Scripture. A 
 bishop reproached him with arrogantly setting up his 
 opinion against the whole Council. " Let the lowest in the 
 Council convince me; I will humbly own my error." The 
 night before his condemnation Huss made confession, and, 
 it is asserted, received absolution from a monk. 
 
 The Council met in the cathedral; the Cardinal-Bishop 
 of Ostia presided. Sigismund and the princes of the Empire 
 were present. While mass was celebrated, Huss, as a 
 heretic, stood in the porch. The Bishop of Lodi preached 
 from the text, " That the body of sin might be destroyed." 
 It was a fierce declamation; it suggested that Huss was as 
 " bad as Arius, worse than Sabellius." The preacher closed 
 with adulatory praise of the Emperor. " It is thy glorious 
 office to destroy heresy and schism, especially this obstinate 
 heretic." He pointed to Huss, who was kneeling in an 
 elevated place and in fervent prayer. 
 
 A decree of the Council was read, inhibiting all present, 
 without exception, prelates, princes, kings, emperors, under 
 pain of excommunication and two months' imprisonment, to 
 speak without permission, to reply, to interrupt the pro- 
 ceedings, to give any sign or murmur of applause or dis- 
 approbation, either with the hands or feet. Certain tenets 
 of Wyckliffe were here recited and condemned, afterwards 
 thirty articles containing the articles of Huss. Often, while 
 these articles were read, Huss attempted to speak ; as often 
 he was put to silence. At length, while he was arraigned 
 as believing that the material bread remained after the con- 
 secration, he broke out, " That I deny ; so I have never
 
 72 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 believed or taught." He renounced with equal vehemence 
 a charge that he had added a fourth person to the Trinity; 
 he defied them to produce their nameless witness. His ap- 
 peal to Christ was treated as an impious error. " Oh, 
 blessed Jesus ! " he uttered with a loud voice, " this Thy 
 Council condemns us because in our afflictions we have sought 
 refuge with Thee, the one just Judge." He added, " This 
 I constantly affirm, that the surest and most safe appeal is to 
 the Lord Jesus; Him none can pervert or bribe by gifts, 
 none deceive by false witnesses, or beguile by craft. He 
 will render unto every one his own." He justified himself 
 for having continued to officiate as priest after his ex- 
 communication by the Pope. " Freely came I hither under 
 the safe-conduct of the Emperor." He turned and looked 
 steadily at Sigismund. A deep blush passed over the face 
 of the Emperor. 
 
 The Bishop of Concordia, an aged, bald Italian prelate, 
 rose to read the two sentences, one condemning the writings, 
 the other the person of John Huss to the flames, his writings 
 as propagating the tenets of the heresiarch Wyckliffe, and as 
 containing many things erroneous, scandalous, offensive 
 to pious ears, some notoriously heretical; all, both in Latin 
 and Bohemian, were adjudged to be publicly and solemnly 
 burned. 
 
 Huss was commanded to kneel and hear his own sentence. 
 The Council, having God before its eyes, declared Huss a real 
 and manifest heresiarch, who had advanced doctrines of- 
 fensive, rash, seditious, had trampled under foot the power 
 of the keys and the censures of the Church, had scandalized 
 all true Christians by his appeal to Jesus Christ. "This 
 John Huss, being thus obstinate and incorrigible, who has 
 refused to enter into the bosom of the Church and abjure 
 his errors." Huss broke in, "I have ever desired, and still 
 desire, to be instructed out of the Holy Scriptures." The 
 Bishop concluded with condemning him to be degraded and 
 despoiled of his orders. Huss rose from his knees ; he uttered 
 a fervent prayer to God to pardon his enemies. Some of the 
 older priests, even bishops, looked sternly at him, and laughed 
 his prayers to scorn. The Archbishop of Milan, the Bishops 
 of Bangor, Feltre, Ast (in Hungary), Alexandria, and Lavaur 
 were designated for the office of degradation. Huss was
 
 JOHN HUSS. 73 
 
 clad in all the attire of the priesthood, and led with the cup 
 in his hand to the high altar, as if about to celebrate mass. 
 As they put on the alb, he said, " They put a white robe on 
 our Lord to mock Him when Herod sent Him to Pilate." 
 Once more the bishops implored him to recant. He de- 
 clined for the same reasons alleged before. " Behold," said 
 the Bishop, " how obstinate he is in his malice ! " The cup 
 was taken from his hand. " Accursed Judas, thou hast de- 
 serted the way of peace, thou hast entered into council with 
 the Jews. We take away this cup in which the blood of Christ 
 is offered for the redemption of souls." Huss said, " I trust 
 that I shall drink it this day in the kingdom of heaven." He 
 was stripped one by one of his robes; on each a curse was 
 pronounced. " These mockeries I bear with equal mind for the 
 name and the truth of Christ." The tonsure was now to be 
 effaced. They disputed whether it was to be done with a 
 scissors or a razor. " Lo ! they cannot agree," said Huss 
 " how to put me to shame." It was done with scissors ; the 
 hair was cut in the form of a cross; a high paper crown, 
 daubed over with devils, was set on his head. " We devote 
 thy soul to the devils in hell." " And I commend my soul 
 to the most merciful Lord, Christ Jesus." So the Church 
 made over the heresiarch to the secular arm. The Em- 
 peror delivered him to Louis, Elector Palatine, the imperial 
 vicar; the Elector to the magistrates of Constance, the 
 magistrates to the executioners. 
 
 Huss was led away with two of the headsman's servants 
 before him, two behind. Eight hundred horse followed, and 
 the whole multitude from the city. Over a narrow bridge 
 they went in single file, lest it should break with their weight. 
 They stopped before the Bishop's palace, that Huss might 
 gaze on the pile on which his books lay burning. He only 
 smiled at this ineffectual act of vengeance. As he went along, 
 he addressed the people in German, protesting against the 
 injustice of his sentence. " His adversaries had been able 
 to convince him of no error." The place of execution 
 was a meadow without the walls. He knelt, recited several 
 psalms, with the perpetual burthen, " Lord Jesus, have mercy 
 upon me ! Into Thy hands I commend my spirit." " We 
 know not," said the people, " what this man may have done, 
 we only know that his prayers to God are excellent." They
 
 74 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 asked if he would have a confessor. A priest on a stately 
 horse, and richly attired, protested that no confessor should 
 be granted to a heretic. But Reichenthal, as he himself 
 relates, called forth Ulric Schorand, a man of piety and 
 wisdom. Ulric required that Huss should retract the errors 
 for which he was condemned. Huss declined to confess on 
 such terms. " I have no need ; I am guilty of no mortal 
 sin." He endeavored to address the people again in German. 
 The Elector Palatine refused permission. Then Huss prayed 
 aloud, " Lord Jesus, for Thy sake I endure with patience 
 this cruel death. I beseech Thee to pardon my enemies." 
 As he spoke, the paper miter fell from his head. The rude 
 soldiers replaced it. " He shall be burned with all his 
 devils." He spoke gently to his guards, " I trust that I shall 
 reign with Christ, since I die for His Gospel." 
 
 He was then tied fast by an old rusty chain to the 
 stake affixed on a platform. The Elector Palatine and the 
 Marshal Oppenheim advanced, and again urged him to re- 
 cant. Huss replied that he willingly signed his testimony 
 with his blood. All he had taught and written was to save 
 men's souls from Satan and from the dominion of sin. The 
 fire blazed up; it is said that an old woman was busy in 
 heaping the wood. "Oh, holy simplicity!" said Huss, with 
 the last feeble sounds of his voice. He was heard to chant 
 Terses of the psalms and to pray to the Redeemer. All the 
 remains of the body were torn in pieces, even his clothes 
 thrown into the fire ; the ashes were gathered and thrown into 
 the lake, lest his disciples should make relics of them. But 
 their faithful piety scraped together the earth around the 
 pile and carried it to Bohemia. 
 
 Reception of Columbus at Palos. 
 
 Irving's Life of Columbus. 
 
 Washington Irving's Life of Columbus is a masterpiece of 
 style and diction. A boy of twelve years who has a taste for 
 historical reading will read certain chapters of this book with 
 the interest that is usually given to works of fiction only. If 
 one wishes to arouse in a child that is capable of understanding 
 the language a taste for history, there could hardly be found a 
 work more suited to the purpose than Irving's Life of Co- 
 lumbus.
 
 RECEPTION OF COLUMBUS AT PALOS. 75 
 
 The triumphant return of Columbus was a prodigious 
 event in the history of the little port of Palos, where every- 
 body was more or less interested in the fate of his ex- 
 pedition. The most important and wealthy sea-captains of 
 the place had engaged in it, and scarcely a family but had 
 some relative or friend among the navigators. The departure 
 of the ships, upon what appeared a chimerical and desperate 
 cruise, had spread gloom and dismay over the place ; and 
 the storms which had raged throughout the winter had 
 heightened the public despondency. Many lamented their 
 friends as lost, while imagination lent mysterious horrors 
 to their fate, picturing them as driven about over wild and 
 desert wastes of water without a shore, or as perishing amidst 
 rocks and quicksands and whirlpools ; or a prey to those 
 monsters of the deep with which credulity peopled every 
 distant and unfrequented sea. There was something more 
 awful in such a mysterious fate than in death itself, under 
 any defined and ordinary form. 
 
 Great was the agitation of the inhabitants, therefore, 
 when they beheld one of the ships standing up the river ; but 
 when they learned that she returned in triumph from the 
 discovery of a world, the whole community broke forth into 
 transports of joy. The bells were rung, the shops shut, all 
 business was suspended; foV a time there was nothing but 
 hurry and tumult. Some were anxious to know the fate of 
 a relative, others of a friend, and all to learn the particulars 
 of so wonderful a voyage. When Columbus landed, the 
 multitude thronged to see and welcome him, and a grand 
 procession was formed to the principal church to return 
 thanks to God for so signal a discovery made by the people 
 of that place, forgetting, in their exultation, the thousand 
 difficulties they had thrown in the way of the enterprise. 
 Wherever Columbus passed, he was hailed with shouts and 
 acclamations. What a contrast to his departure a few months 
 before, followed by murmurs and execrations; or, rather, 
 what a contrast to his first arrival at Palos, a poor pedestrian, 
 craving bread and water for his child at the gate of a convent f 
 
 Understanding that the court was at Barcelona, he felt 
 disposed to proceed thither immediately in his caravel. Re- 
 flecting, however, on the dangers and disasters he had 
 already experienced on the seas, he resolved to proceed by
 
 76 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 land. He dispatched a letter to the king and queen, in- 
 forming them of his arrival, and soon after departed for 
 Seville to await their orders, taking with him six of the 
 natives whom he had brought from the New World. One had 
 died at sea, and three were left ill at Palos. 
 
 It is a singular coincidence, which appears to be well 
 authenticated, that on the very evening of the arrival of 
 Columbus at Palos, and while the peals of triumph were 
 still ringing from its towers, the Pinta, commanded by Martin 
 Alonzo Pinzon, likewise entered the river. After her sep- 
 aration from the admiral in the storm, she had been driven 
 before the gale into the Bay. of Biscay, and had made the 
 port of Bayonne. Doubting whether Columbus had survived 
 the tempest, Pinzon had immediately written to the sov- 
 ereigns, giving information of the discovery he had made, 
 and had requested permission to come to court, and com- 
 municate the particulars in person. As soon as the weather 
 permitted, he had again set sail, anticipating a triumphant 
 reception in his native port of Palos. When, on entering 
 the harbor, he beheld the vessel of the admiral riding at 
 anchor, and learned the enthusiasm with which he had been 
 received, the heart of Pinzon died within him. It is said 
 that he feared to meet Columbus in this hour of his triumph, 
 lest he should put him under arrest for his desertion on 
 the coast of Cuba ; but he was a man of too much resolution 
 to indulge in such a fear. It is more probable that a con- 
 sciousness of his misconduct made him unwilling to appear 
 before the public in the midst of their enthusiasm for Co- 
 lumbus, and perhaps he sickened at the honors heaped upon 
 a man whose superiority he had been so unwilling to ac- 
 knowledge. Getting into his boat, therefore, he landed pri- 
 vately, and kept out of sight until he heard of the admiral's 
 departure. He then returned to his home, broken in health 
 and deeply dejected, considering all the honors and eulo- 
 giums heaped upon Columbus as so many reproaches on 
 himself. The reply of his sovereigns to his letter at length 
 arrived. It was of a reproachful tenor, and forbade his 
 appearance at court. This letter completed his humiliation; 
 the anguish of his feelings gave virulence to his bodily 
 malady, and in a few days he died, a victim of deep chagrin. 
 
 Let no one, however, indulge in harsh censures over the
 
 RECEPTION OF COLUMBUS AT PALOS. 77 
 
 grave of Pinzon. His merits and services are entitled to 
 the highest praise; his errors should be regarded with in- 
 dulgence. He was one of the foremost in Spain to appreciate 
 the project of Columbus, animating him by his concurrence 
 and aiding him with his purse when poor and unknown at 
 Palos. He afterward enabled him to procure and fit out ships, 
 when even the mandates of the sovereigns were ineffectual, 
 and finally embarked in the expedition with his brothers and 
 his friends, staking life, property, everything upon the event. 
 He thus entitled himself to participate largely in the glory 
 of this immortal enterprise; but unfortunately, forgetting 
 for a moment the grandeur of the cause, and the implicit 
 obedience due to his commander, he yielded to the incitements 
 of self-interest, and committed the act of insubordination 
 which has cast a shadow on his name. In extenuation of his 
 fault, however, may be alleged his habits of command, which 
 rendered him impatient of control ; his consciousness of having 
 rendered great services to the expedition, and of possessing 
 property in the ships. That he was a man of great pro- 
 fessional merit is admitted by all his contemporaries ; that 
 he naturally possessed generous sentiments and an honorable 
 ambition, is evident from the poignancy with which he felt 
 the disgrace drawn on him by his misconduct. A mean man 
 would not have fallen a victim to self-upbraiding for having 
 been convicted of a mean action. His story shows how 
 one lapse from duty may counterbalance the merits of a 
 thousand services, how one moment of weakness may mar 
 the beauty of a whole life of virtue, and how important it 
 is for a man, under all circumstances, to be true, not only 
 to others, but to himself. 
 
 About the middle of April, Columbus arrived at Barce- 
 lona, where every preparation had been made to give him a 
 solemn and magnificent reception. The beauty and serenity 
 of the weather in that genial and favored climate con- 
 tributed to give splendor to this memorable ceremony. As 
 he drew near the place, many of the youthful courtiers and 
 hidalgoes, together with a vast concourse of the populace, 
 came forth to meet and welcome him. His entrance into 
 this city has been compared to one of those triumphs which
 
 78 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 the Romans were accustomed to decree to conquerors. First 
 were paraded the Indians, painted according to their savage 
 fashion, and decorated with their national ornaments of 
 gold. After these were borne various kinds of live parrots, 
 together with stuffed birds and animals of unknown species, 
 and rare plants supposed to be of precious qualities, while 
 great care was taken to make a conspicuous display of 
 Indian coronets, bracelets, and other decorations of gold, 
 which might give an idea of the wealth of the newly-dis- 
 covered regions. After this, followed Columbus on horseback, 
 surrounded by a brilliant cavalcade of Spanish chivalry. The 
 streets were almost impassable for the countless multitude; 
 the windows and balconies were crowded with the fair; the 
 very roofs were covered with spectators. It seemed as if 
 the public eye could not be sated with gazing on these tro- 
 phies of an unknown world, or on the remarkable man by 
 whom it had been discovered. There was a sublimity in this 
 event that mingled a solemn feeling with the public joy. It 
 was looked upon as a vast and signal dispensation of Provi- 
 dence, in reward for the piety of the monarchs; and the ma- 
 jestic and venerable appearance of the discoveries, so dif- 
 ferent from the youth and buoyancy generally expected from 
 roving enterprise, seemed in harmony with the grandeur and 
 the dignity of his achievement. 
 
 To receive him with suitable pomp and distinction, the 
 sovereigns had ordered their throne to be placed in publie 
 under a rich canopy of brocade of gold, in a vast and 
 splendid saloon. Here the King and Queen awaited his ar- 
 rival, seated in state, with the prince Juan beside them, and 
 attended by the dignitaries of their court, and the principal 
 nobility of Castile, Valentia, Catalonia, and Aragon, all 
 impatient to behold the man who had conferred so incalcu- 
 lable a benefit upon the nation. At length Columbus entered 
 the hall, surrounded by a brilliant crowd of cavaliers, among 
 whom, says Las Casas, he was conspicuous for his stately 
 and commanding person, which with his countenance, ren- 
 dered venerable by his gray hairs, gave him the august ap- 
 pearance of a senator of Rome. A modest smile lighted up 
 his features, showing that he enjoyed the state and glory in 
 which he came; and certainly nothing could be more deeply 
 moving to a mind inflamed by noble ambition, and conscious
 
 RECEPTION OF COLUMBUS AT PALOS. 79 
 
 of having greatly deserved, than these testimonials of the 
 admiration and gratitude of a nation, or rather of a world. 
 As Columbus approached, the sovereigns rose, as if receiving 
 a person of the highest rank. Bending his knees, he offered 
 to kiss their hands; but there was some hesitation on their 
 part to permit this act of homage. Raising him in the most 
 gracious manner, they ordered him to seat himself in their 
 presence, a rare honor in this proud and punctilious court. 
 
 At their request, he now gave an account of the most 
 striking events of his voyage, and a description of the islands 
 discovered. He displayed specimens of unknown birds and 
 other animals; of rare plants of medicinal and aromatic 
 virtues; of native gold in dust, in crude masses, or labored 
 into barbaric ornaments; and, above all, the natives of these 
 countries, who were objects of intense and inexhaustible 
 interest. All these he pronounced mere harbingers of greater 
 discoveries yet to be made, which would add realms of in- 
 calculable wealth to the dominions of their majesties, and 
 whole nations of proselytes to the true faith. 
 
 When he had finished, the sovereigns sank on their knees, 
 and raising their clasped hands to heaven, their eyes filled 
 with tears of joy and gratitude, poured forth thanks and 
 praise to God for so great a providence. All present followed 
 their example; a deep and solemn enthusiasm pervaded that 
 splendid assembly, and prevented all common acclamations 
 of triumph. The anthem Te Deum laudamus, chanted by the 
 choir of the royal chapel, with the accompaniment of in- 
 struments, rose in a full body of sacred harmony, bearing up, 
 as it were, the feelings and thoughts of the auditors to heaven, 
 " so that," says the venerable Las Casas, " it seemed as if 
 in that hour they communicated with celestial delights." 
 Such was the solemn and pious manner in which the brilliant 
 court of Spain celebrated this sublime event, offering up a 
 grateful tribute of melody and praise, and giving glory to 
 God for the discovery of another world. 
 
 When Columbus retired from the royal presence, he was 
 attended to his residence by all the court, and followed by the 
 shouting populace. For many days he was the object of uni- 
 versal curiosity, and wherever he appeared, was surrounded 
 by an admiring multitude.
 
 80 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 Martin Luther. 
 
 Sommer's Luther Album. 
 
 " Great men need not that we praise them ; the need is ours 
 that we know them. They are our common heritage. Whether 
 we be of their faith or another, whether our fathers fought with 
 them or with their enemies, whether we stand where they stood, 
 or have traveled on far on ways they dreamed not of, we are 
 the richer that they lived." 
 
 Not to know Luther and his work is to be ignorant of the 
 most influential man and the most stupendous changes that have 
 effected our surroundings and conditions within the last thou- 
 sand years; not to know Luther and his work is to go through 
 life burdened with a limit of vision which amounts to a curse. 
 
 On the other hand, no one can study Luther and his times 
 without having a new light given him in which to behold the 
 affairs, conditions, and men of our own day. Let no one, there- 
 fore, be satisfied to read this short extract from the life of this 
 great man. It should rather be a morsel to whet the appetite 
 for learning more of that personage and those unparalled up- 
 heavals which transformed the whole society of Europe. 
 
 A young man or woman who wishes to have an intelligent 
 insight into the complex causes which led up to the most inter- 
 esting situation in the affairs of Europe, and who wishes to gain 
 a clear view of a truly great man, permitted of God to act the 
 part for which he had been fitted, will not bestow too much time 
 upon this matter if they devote the leisure of one entire winter 
 to research study of the period of the Reformation. 
 
 Koestlin's Life of Luther is the authentic work in German, 
 but the English translation is rather faulty; we have therefore 
 quoted another work which essentially covers the same ground, 
 at least of that period of which we speak. 
 
 God chose that man Luther to reform the abuses of Popery, 
 for by God's providence and help Luther succeeded in forcing the 
 Pope into a position where he could not entirely prevent the 
 preaching of God's Word. 
 
 THE HERO AT THE DIET. 
 
 Few rulers of unknown character and aims have ever 
 been welcomed and greeted with more joyous and hopeful 
 anticipations than Charles V, and scarcely ever have such 
 anticipations been more cruelly disappointed. He had been 
 elected German Emperor because the Germans expected 
 the grandson of Maximilian I to take a hearty interest in 
 German affairs; but Charles could not speak German, and 
 was much more interested in his kingdom of Spain than in 
 anything pertaining to Germany. He cared very little and 
 understood still less of the religious controversy which agi- 
 tated the German people. Born of a melancholy mother who
 
 MARTIN LUTHER. 81 
 
 finally died insane, he was himself of a gloomy disposition. 
 This inherited moroseness had been further nurtured by the 
 severe, monkish, and dark Romanism in which he had been 
 reared, turning him away from that very Gospel which 
 brings us joy and gladness. Although the " new doctrine " 
 had been described to him as inimical to the government, 
 his political shrewdness prevented the young man from serv- 
 ing the Pope as a willing tool. There might be a possibility 
 of utilizing this anti-Rome movement in checking the Pope's 
 tyranny, which was felt even by emperors ; and then, Charles 
 had to be careful not to offend those of the German princes 
 who favored Luther, especially the influential Frederick the 
 Wise. 
 
 This thoughtful Frederick the Wise requested the Em- 
 peror to hear Luther's answer to his accusers before taking 
 any measure against him. Charles thereupon suggested that 
 he bring Luther with him to the next diet. Luther was 
 consulted and answered Spalatin, the court-chaplain and 
 private secretary of the Elector, through whom such busi- 
 ness between Luther and the Elector was carried on : " If 
 I am called, I shall, as far as I am concerned, go there sick 
 if I cannot go there well, for I dare not doubt that God 
 calls me when my emperor calls. But if they are going to 
 use force upon me, as is probable, for they certainly do 
 not call me to be instructed, we commend the whole matter 
 to God. For He still lives and reigns who preserved the 
 three youths in the furnace of the Babylonian king. But 
 if He will not preserve me, my head after all is of small 
 importance compared to Christ who was killed so shame- 
 fully, an offense to all and the ruin of many. For in such 
 a case as this we dare not consider our danger or welfare, 
 but rather have a care lest we cease preaching the Gospel 
 which we have brought forth again, and thus become the 
 laughing-stock of the ungodly, or lest our opponents have 
 occasion to boast against us that we have not the heart to 
 confess what we have taught, and fear to shed our blood for 
 it. May the merciful Savior preserve us from such cowardice 
 and them from such boasting. This is my counsel and 
 opinion. You may expect everything of me save flight or 
 recantation. I will not flee, much less will I recant. May 
 the Lord Jesus strengthen me f *
 
 82 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 That was Luther's bold answer, written December 21, 
 1520. The papal party dreaded his coming to the Diet at 
 Worms, fearing that he would there gain new adherents for 
 his cause. The papal legate Aleander therefore demanded 
 of the Emperor that he execute Luther, since the Pope had 
 excommunicated him. " The language of Luther," said he, 
 " is cause enough for the burning of one hundred thousand 
 heretics." To the German people he said : " Even though 
 you Germans, who are paying the least money to the Pope, 
 shake off the yoke of Roman supremacy, we will nevertheless 
 see to it that you kill one another and perish in your own 
 blood." History has sufficiently demonstrated the cruel 
 earnestness of this threat ! 
 
 In spite of this, however, the Elector Frederick suc- 
 ceeded in having Luther invited to appear before the Diet. 
 On March 26, 1521, the imperial herald, Caspar Storm, 
 arrived at Wittenberg with the official summons. This 
 document cited Luther to appear within 21 days before the 
 Emperor, and guaranteed safe conduct. Papal agents had 
 been busy to prevent a public discussion with Luther at the 
 Diet. He was simply to be called upon to recant. If he 
 acceded to this wish, an adjustment of his difficulties might 
 follow, but if he continued to oppose the teaching of the 
 Church, he was to be treated with utmost severity as a 
 heretic. Had this plan carried, Luther's visit to Worms 
 would have utterly failed of its purpose, for Luther, lover 
 of the truth that he was, wished above all things for an 
 opportunity publicly, before the assembled estates, to bear 
 witness to the truth of God's holy Word, which he had 
 defended. 
 
 On the Wednesday after Easter, April 3, Luther set out 
 for Worms. The town-council of Wittenberg provided the 
 horses for the journey. The herald traveled in advance, 
 then came Luther's wagon, occupied by the Reformer, 
 Amsdorf, a Pommeranian nobleman, and an Augustinian 
 monk. Many shed tears as they saw the faithful man, from 
 whose lips they had heard the blessed Gospel, leave the town. 
 Would they ever see him again? Would they ever hear 
 him again proclaim the Word of Truth? The journey was 
 a veritable triumphal procession. No one seemed to con- 
 sider Luther an excommunicated monk; nay, the citizens
 
 MARTIN LUTHER. 83 
 
 rather greeted him as the beloved deliverer and the heroic 
 defender of his people. Everywhere they flocked together 
 to see and hail the brave confessor, the German champion 
 of the truth. In Leipzig the town-council entertained him 
 in the customary honorable manner. On Saturday, April 6, 
 he arrived at Erfurt. Here the university had prepared to 
 receive him with every mark of honor and esteem. He was 
 led in a brilliant procession, accompanied by many horsemen, 
 into the city. Slowly he rode up to the very portal of that 
 Augustinian cloister through which he had stepped for the 
 first time 16 years ago. At a festive gathering, arranged in 
 his honor, the professors of the university congratulated him 
 upon his blessed undertaking, and encouraged him to con- 
 tinue. On the next day to an overflowing audience he 
 preached that very Gospel of God's love which the Pope 
 indeed condemned, but which all Christians love. Then he 
 traveled on. At Gotha he preached to a multitude, and again 
 at the foot of the Wartburg, at Eisenach. At this place he 
 was taken ill. After some treatment he could proceed, but 
 he felt an indisposition which was new to him. Afterward 
 Luther was often troubled with bodily infirmities. As he 
 drew near to Worms, he frequently noticed posted up an 
 edict of the Emperor, calling upon every one to surrender 
 the " condemned " writings of Luther. The imperial herald, 
 concerned for his safety, asked whether he would not rather 
 turn back; but Luther declared that Christ is still living, 
 and he would enter Worms in defiance of all " the gates of 
 hell " and of " the Prince of the power of the air." Finally, 
 the enemies of Luther had invented still another plan to 
 keep him away from the Diet. They had succeeded some- 
 how in inducing Sickingen to invite Luther to visit him at 
 his castle of Ebernburg, in order to avoid great danger. 
 If Luther had accepted this invitation, he would have ex- 
 ceeded the limit of the safe-conduct, lost the imperial pro- 
 tection, and thus, himself, made his appearance at the Diet 
 an impossibility. But Luther knew what he wanted to do; 
 he declined the invitation, and proceeded toward Worms. 
 Before its very gates Spalatin once more warned him of 
 the danger that awaited him, but the hero boldly declared: 
 " Though there be as many devils in Worms as there are
 
 84 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 tiles upon the roofs, I will enter it ! " And he recalled that 
 the death of John Huss was not the death of the truth. 
 
 Aleander could not hide his chagrin, when he saw that 
 Luther was not to be kept away from Worms. He threat- 
 ened to call up princes and peoples to destroy Luther after 
 the latter's return to Wittenberg. He sometimes doubted 
 that the damage could ever be remedied, so boldly did 
 Frederick the Wise stand up for the cause of Luther, and 
 so quickly did this cause win adherents. He urged that 
 Luther be brought into the city very quietly, and that he be 
 given a room in the imperial palace, so that as few as pos- 
 sible might meet him. 
 
 But all his efforts proved in vain. Though some think 
 that Luther's entrance had purposely been arranged for ten 
 o'clock in the morning, at which time the people then took 
 their midday meal, yet, when the watchman upon the spire 
 of the cathedral gave the signal announcing the approach 
 of the cavalcade, the streets were soon filled with a surging 
 mass of humanity. A number of noblemen and notable men 
 had mounted their horses and had sallied forth to meet 
 Luther, and these now led the bold Reformer in a grand 
 procession into the city. The whole city seemed to have 
 turned out to see Luther enter. Every one wanted to be- 
 hold the brave man who was willing to defy the Pope and 
 to confess his faith before the Emperor and the entire Diet. 
 Compared to this reception and greeting, that accorded the 
 papal legate, yea, even that extended to the Emperor dwindled 
 into insignificance. A vast multitude surrounded the car- 
 riage in which Luther sat composed, confident, and joyful. 
 A brilliant parade of cavalry, headed by the imperial herald 
 and his aid, accompanies him. As a mighty chief among his 
 people this plain monk is accorded almost a triumphal entry, 
 the procession is scarcely able at times to proceed through 
 this throng of people. At the inn of the Knights of St. 
 John, Luther is to occupy rooms prepared for him. He 
 steps from his wagon, uttering the words that express his 
 heart's sincere sentiment, " God will be with me." And 
 now the house is filled with those who go and come to see 
 and consult the courageous monk ; counts, noblemen, knights, 
 and priests conversed with him till a late hour. 
 
 Everything was now prepared for the decisive moment,
 
 MARTIN LUTHER. 85 
 
 Emperor and Pope were in league, the temporal and spiritual 
 powers had joined forces to oppose one poor, plain man ; 
 but in that man beat a heart strong in its trust in the living 
 God and in His Word. It was the dawn of a new era, 
 through the darkness and clouds of superstition began to 
 break the golden sunlight of saving truth. 
 
 THE CLIMAX. 
 
 The city was crowded to its utmost capacity. About 80 
 princes with their retinue, 130 counts, 15 ambassadors, in- 
 cluding those of England and France, imperial generals and 
 the highest officials of state, many representatives of cities, 
 innumerable knights, cavalry officers, and noblemen had gath- 
 ered in the town according to the report of one of those 
 present, who writes : " Also excellent merchants from Spain, 
 from the Netherlands, from Italy, and from German coun- 
 tries; there is such an amazingly great display and bril- 
 liancy of German, Spanish, and foreign lords, also of 
 prancing, high-spirited horses, that I am not able to de- 
 scribe it." 
 
 The Diet assembled in the palace of the Bishop, where 
 also the Emperor resided during his stay in Worms. On the 
 forenoon of April 17, the imperial court-marshal, Ulrich von 
 Pappenheim, summoned Luther to appear before the Diet at 
 4 o'clock that afternoon. The rumor of this soon spread 
 through the whole city. The streets leading from Luther's 
 lodgings to the episcopal palace were soon filled with a dense 
 crowd. Luther's escorts, Pappenheim and Storm, had diffi- 
 culty to bring Luther even through gardens and byways, for 
 the multitude flocked even to these when they heard of their 
 route; the very roofs were alive with those who wanted to 
 see Luther. After reaching the palace, he had to wait two 
 hours before he was admitted into the hall of the assembled 
 Diet. At last he is told that he may come, and now into the 
 brilliant assembly steps the pale monk, fearless, trusting God. 
 A heavy mailed hand touches his shoulders. It is George von 
 Frundsberg, a noted captain of infantry, who has led many a 
 brilliant charge amid the roar of battle. He loves a brave 
 man, soldier or scholar. He looks at Luther with an admir- 
 ing glance and addresses him : " My dear monk, this moment 
 you are advancing to take a position the like of which I and
 
 86 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 many another captain have never undertaken in our most 
 desperate encounters ; but if you are sincere and satisfied that 
 you are defending a good cause, then proceed in the name of 
 God and be of good cheer ; God will not forsake you." With- 
 out question Luther appreciated these encouraging words of 
 the old pious soldier at this important moment. 
 
 The doors of the assembly hall are thrown open; Luther 
 is standing in the presence of the Emperor and of the Diet 
 in solemn gathering. The supreme moment has arrived. It 
 is a brilliant vision which Luther beholds. Upon a rich and 
 gorgeous throne sits that Emperor in whose realm the sun 
 never sets, Charles V, upon elevated chairs are seated the 
 six electors of the empire, with them are assembled the chief 
 princes of Germany, the representatives of the free cities, the 
 bishops, abbots, in short, all of any authority in German ter- 
 ritory. There is noticeable excitement as the bold monk steps 
 among them. This is the man who defies a world of power ! 
 John Eck, the official of the Archbishop of Treves, pointing 
 to a stack of books, asked Luther whether he recognized 
 these books to be his own writings, and whether he would 
 retract their contents. This question was put in the Latin 
 and in the German language. Jerome Schurf, Luther's legal 
 adviser, demanded that the titles of the books be read. This 
 was done, and it now appeared that the papal legate, Alean- 
 der, who had brought these books into the hall, had included 
 also devotional writings of Luther. Luther acknowledged 
 that these were his own writings. He is urged to decide 
 whether he will recant. He frankly states: "This question 
 concerns faith and the Word of God, which is of more im- 
 portance than all else in heaven and on earth. Therefore I 
 beg your Imperial Majesty most humbly and submissively to 
 grant me time for reflection, in order that I may without dis- 
 loyalty to the Word of God and without danger to my soul's 
 salvation answer the questions correctly." Luther did not 
 request this delay because of any fear, but mindful of his 
 main purpose; he, above all, wished for an opportunity to 
 speak out freely, and, at length, to bear testimony of the 
 faith and teaching which he had proclaimed. This he hoped 
 to accomplish by his answer, and he was not disappointed. 
 Twenty-four hours were granted him for reflection, and he 
 made most faithful use of this time. He took the whole
 
 MARTIN LUTHER. 87 
 
 matter to God in prayer. Most likely it was in that very 
 night that he prayed aloud in his chamber : " Almighty, 
 eternal God, what a world this is ! How the people do stare 
 and gape at it ! How little and scant is men's trust in God ! 
 How weak and tender is the flesh, and how powerful is Satan, 
 how active through his apostles and worldly-wise agents ! 
 How quick she is to let go, rattles away, runs the trodden 
 path and the broad road to hell, where the ungodly belong, 
 and only admires what is brilliant and powerful, great and 
 mighty, and what appears to have prestige and reputation. 
 If I am also to direct my eyes thither, then I am done for, 
 the bell is cast, and sentence already pronounced. O God, 
 
 Lord, O Thou my God ! Thou my God, help me against 
 all reason and wisdom of this world ! Do Thou it ; Thou must 
 do it, Thou alone. For it is surely not my, but Thy cause. 
 Surely, as for me personally, I have no business here and no 
 dealings with these great lords of the world. I certainly 
 would also enjoy good, easy days and be rid of all worry. 
 But Thine, dear Lord, is this righteous and eternal cause. 
 Support me, Thou faithful, eternal God ! I put confidence in 
 no man. It is all in vain ; faulty and lame is everything that 
 is flesh and tastes of flesh. God, O God ! Dost Thou not 
 hear, my God? Art Thou dead? No, Thou canst not die, 
 Thou only hidest Thyself! Hast Thou chosen me for this? 
 
 1 ask Thee, for certainly I know it ; well, then, God grant it ! 
 For, in all my life, I never thought to be against such great 
 lords, I never understand it either. Well, then, God, sustain 
 me in the name of Thy dear Son Jesus Christ, who shall be 
 to me my protection and my defense, aye, my strong tower, 
 through the power and help of Thy Holy Spirit. Lord, where 
 shall I find Thee? Thou, my God, where art Thou? Come, 
 come, I am ready to lay down my very life, patiently, as a 
 little lamb. For righteous is the cause, and it is Thine own ; 
 and I will not separate myself from Thee for all eternity. 
 That shall now be decided in Thy name. The world shall not 
 force my conscience, and though she be full of devils and 
 even though my body, which is certainly first of all the work 
 and creation of Thy hands, go to wrack and ruin, aye, to very 
 fragments on account of it, but Thy Word and Spirit shall 
 bless me the more. And it's only a matter of the body ; the 
 soul is Thine and belongs to Thee, and shall also remain
 
 88 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 Thine for all eternity. Amen. God help me ! Amen." Thus 
 did Luther pray, and thus he only can pray who is sure of 
 his faith and confidently waits for God's help. 
 
 The next day, Thursday, April 18, about six in the even- 
 ing, the twilight beginning to fall, Luther stood once more 
 before the Diet in the brilliantly illuminated assembly hall. 
 A dense multitude filled the corridors. Eck asked him : " Do 
 you defend all those books which you have acknowledged to 
 be yours, or will you retract anything ? " Luther, raising his 
 voice sufficiently to be heard in the entire hall, delivered his 
 celebrated and historic answer, first in Latin, and then, upon 
 request, though speaking had wearied and warmed him some- 
 what, also in German. In his answer Luther classified his 
 writings under three heads. As books of the first class he 
 mentioned those in which he had proclaimed Gospel truth, 
 treating therein of faith and morals; these are useful to 
 friends and foes of the Church alike; he could not recant 
 them. In the second class were his polemical writings, in 
 which he had attacked the false teachings of popery " by 
 which the souls of Christians were miserably tortured." 
 These also he could not recant, otherwise he would " him- 
 self become a cloak for tyranny and wickedness." The third 
 class of his books were written against individuals who had 
 undertaken " to defend Roman tyranny and to extinguish 
 the truth." Even though in these he might have spoken at 
 times with more than seemly severity, yet he could not re- 
 cant them either, because he would thus encourage tyranny 
 and ungodliness. By quoting finally the words of Jesus: 
 " If I have spoken evil, bear witness of the evil," Luther 
 made one more attempt to get his opponents to examine with 
 him the truth of his claims. But they would not. Eck told 
 him that his teachings were long since condemned, that there 
 was therefore no need of any further discussion, and de- 
 manded that he give a clear, brief, and unmistakable answer. 
 Then Luther said : " Since your Imperial Majesty and your 
 Grace desire a plain, definite answer, I will give you this one 
 that hath neither horns nor teeth: Unless I am convinced 
 by the testimony of the Scripture or by clear, cogent argu- 
 ments (for I believe neither the Pope nor the Councils alone, 
 since it is manifest that they have often erred and contra- 
 dicted themselves), and because I am convinced by the
 
 MARTIN LUTHER. 89 
 
 Scripture quoted by me, and my conscience is constrained by 
 the Word of God, I can recant nothing and will recant noth- 
 ing; for to do anything against the witness of conscience is 
 unsafe and dangerous." 
 
 Again he was asked whether he would continue to main- 
 tain that church councils had erred. He answered : " Church 
 councils may err and have erred, that is manifest, and I am 
 willing to prove it." About this time there was some con- 
 fusion and noise in the hall, wherefore all did not hear the 
 heroic words spoken by Luther in conclusion : " Here I 
 stand, I cannot do otherwise, God help me ! Amen." 
 
 The sounds of these heroic words had scarcely died away, 
 when the Emperor arose from his throne, he dismissed the 
 assembly, his mind was made up. There was the usual dis- 
 order and noise of a meeting breaking up. Some of the 
 Spaniards sneered at Luther, but his friends gathered about 
 him to protect and thank him. Even of his opponents some 
 expressed their admiration for his courage and valor. Armed 
 men, detailed to act as a body guard, led him out. It is the 
 conqueror who leaves the battlefield after a great spiritual 
 fight. 
 
 " I am through, I am through," Luther exultingly ex- 
 claimed when he entered his room about eight o'clock. 
 While passing through the courtyard of the episcopal palace, 
 he was refreshed by some beer sent him in a silver tankard 
 by Duke Eric of Brunswick. All evening Luther's room in 
 the inn of the Knights of St. John was filled with visitors. 
 There were so many who wished to look and look again upon 
 the face of that man who had dared to step into the cruel 
 tyrant's path and call a halt ! Luther felt that he stood not 
 alone. "Wherever that monk walks upon the streets, there 
 is a crowd of people to gaze at him, and there is much noise 
 and talking of him," writes a councilor of Nuremberg in a 
 letter to his family at home. 
 
 His steadfastness before the Diet Luther considered a 
 gift of God and another proof of the truthfulness of his 
 doctrine. " Rather than retract I would sooner lose a thou- 
 sand heads if I had them," he said to his friends. There was 
 no lack of encouraging communications, written and oral. 
 The Landgrave Philip of Hesse visited him. Till then this 
 prince had opposed Luther's teaching, but the clear, bold
 
 90 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 testimony of the Reformer won his heart, and he became an 
 ardent confessor of evangelical truth. On that very day also 
 Frederick the Wise said to Spalatin : " A very able address 
 indeed did the Father, Dr. Martin, deliver before the Em- 
 peror and the representatives of the empire, and that both in 
 Latin and German. To me he appeared almost too bold." 
 
 The Emperor and the papal party now thought that 
 Luther's cause was decided and his fate sealed. The papists 
 even tried to convince the Emperor that he need not keep his 
 promise to grant Luther safe-conduct home ; but this attempt 
 to raise the authority of the Pope above that of the Emperor 
 failed. Charles V had decided that Luther was to be safely 
 conducted to his home, but that then the consequences of his 
 stubbornness should overtake him, he was to be dealt with 
 as an excommunicated outlaw, cursed by the Church, and 
 given up to violence of whomsoever by the government. The 
 assembled representatives, however, arranged to have a com- 
 mittee deal with Luther. The Elector and Archbishop of 
 Treves, a kindly disposed man, was given charge of these 
 negotiations. He tried in a friendly manner to pacify Luther, 
 and win him for the course that promised a peaceable set- 
 tlement. Those were painful and dangerous hours for 
 Luther. He prayed much and fervently for strength and 
 guidance. A firm stand meant warfare, yielding meant out- 
 ward peace. But God gave him the victory. Luther re- 
 mained steadfast. He demanded to be shown from the Bible 
 if he had uttered errors. Several meetings were held, but 
 Luther said : " I cannot yield ; God may deal with me as He 
 will." 
 
 On the evening of the 25th of April he was assured again 
 of safe-conduct for 21 days more, but also notified that he 
 was now to leave Worms and return to " his own place," 
 and not to preach on the way. Luther thanked the Emperor 
 for faithful performance of his promise of safe-conduct, 
 assured him of his obedience as a subject, but reserved for 
 himself the right to speak and write God's Word. 
 
 A VOLUNTARY PRISONER. 
 
 Luther knew that he would not reach Wittenberg. On 
 the evening before his departure from Worms he had been 
 informed of a plan of the Saxon court to take him prisoner
 
 MARTIN LUTHER. 91 
 
 and have him disappear. The Elector and his brother, Duke 
 John, were not to know the details in order to be able to 
 deny knowledge of Luther's whereabouts. The electoral 
 councilors had charge of the arrangements. 
 
 On the morning of April 26 Luther leaves Worms in 
 the same carriage which had carried him thither, and a 
 cheering multitude accompanies him to the gate of the city. 
 The loyal hero of faith leaves the battle-field. The Pope has 
 cursed him, proscription shall soon overtake him, but what 
 is all that to him? God is his refuge and strength. As 
 soon as the gate of the city closes behind him, a troop of 
 horsemen surround him to protect him against surprise or 
 attack. Through Frankfurt on the Main, Hersfeld, Eisenach, 
 he journeys homeward. Wherever Luther appears, the 
 people throng about him and listen to his sermon. Spring- 
 time had come to Germany, new spiritual life was springing 
 forth out of the ice and snow of dead works and false doc- 
 trine of the Church; the Word of God in its whole clear- 
 ness and simplicity instilled life into the spirits of men. 
 True, Luther had been forbidden to preach, but he was 
 not going to have God's Word prohibited, and when people 
 clamored so loudly for the Word, he could not keep silent. 
 In Friedberg he wrote another letter to the Emperor and 
 to the representatives, in which he offers to submit his teach- 
 ing to able men and to recant, if he is convinced of error 
 from Holy Scripture. " In matters pertaining to God and 
 eternity, God will not suffer us to submit to man, or to let 
 another decide them for us, but we must submit these things 
 to God only. God's Word alone, that holy, free, pure, and 
 clear Word, shall reign supreme and remain the judge of all 
 men. That is due justice, no more." 
 
 In Eisenach Luther separated from his friends; none 
 but Amsdorf and an Augustinian monk from Wittenberg 
 remain with him. The imperial herald had been dismissed 
 by him at Friedberg with the letter addressed to the Emperor. 
 
 Luther now felt a desire to visit his relatives in the 
 town of his ancestors, from which he was but a short dis- 
 tance. Thither he takes his way. He journeys through 
 the great shady forests of birch to the little town of 
 Moehra. Will they welcome a man excommunicated by the 
 Pope? Ah, these sturdy, honest German peasants rejoice
 
 92 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 that one of their own family has manfully resisted tyranny. 
 These quiet people in the vales of the Thuringian Forest 
 had heard something of his clear ringing testimony. They 
 had been animated, they wanted to hear more. Luther is 
 to preach to them. The chapel is far too small to hold the 
 people who wish to hear him. Luther therefore steps to an 
 elevation under the " village birch-tree," the multitude 
 gathers about him, and here under the blue expanse of 
 heaven the monk speaks to them the everlasting Gospel. 
 Here, where in ancient times the old Teutons had held 
 court and passed sentence, where the sunshine of return- 
 ing spring had, year after year, awakened new life in the 
 budding blossoms and sprouting shoots, here Luther is to 
 point out to them the way of peace with God. There, in 
 their midst he stands, every ear is attentive, every heart is 
 beating with expectancy. His forceful words touch their 
 conscience, the precious consolations of the Gospel are to 
 them sweeter than honey and the honeycomb; it is the 
 Word of Christ, it is the truth, it makes them free; and 
 this liberating Word sounds through the forest stillness, 
 sounds, throughout Germany, sounds into foreign climes, 
 and with its sound it carries life, joy, and liberty. 
 
 From the heights of the Thuringian Forest through 
 valleys and through wooded groves Luther rides on the 
 4th of May toward the south again. Quite a company of 
 earnest men, dressed in the garb of forest-peasants, con- 
 duct him. They are his kinsmen. They love the man, his 
 words have touched them deeply, this social converse on 
 the roadway cements the tie that unites them. But the 
 afternoon is advancing, it is growing dusk, the men must 
 return. They part. Luther is once more alone, still trav- 
 eling southward. In the distance now are seen the towers 
 of castle Altenstein. Suddenly a troop of armed horsemen 
 sallies forth from the forest, surrounds the wagon, threat- 
 ens to kill the driver if he offers resistance. That fright- 
 ened man lashes the horses, but one of the attacking party 
 has secured these and is holding them. The Augustinian 
 monk who accompanied Luther, fearing for his own life, 
 escapes into the forest. Luther is dragged from the 
 vehicle, placed on a horse and led away. In another mo- 
 ment the troop has disappeared with Luther in the forest.
 
 MARTIN LUTHER. 93 
 
 Through the darkness they ride at a mad gait, hither and 
 thither as it seems, till late at night they arrive at a lonely 
 castle. There is the rattle of the falling drawbridge, the 
 clatter of hoofs in the courtyard, the sound of a command- 
 ing voice, and the hurrying of obeying servants, the flicker- 
 ing light of burning torches show the horsemen the way. 
 Where is Luther? It is an ancient fastness, the Wartburg, 
 where friends have provided for the brave monk a refuge 
 from the storm that was now to break over him. The 
 Elector knew that Luther must be sheltered, for ban and 
 proscription, curse of Pope and persecution of Emperor, 
 may incite a fanatic to seek the hero's life. And the cruel 
 edict soon appeared which outlawed Luther, forbade every 
 one to give him food or shelter, but gave all the right to 
 take him captive and deliver him to the Emperor. Given 
 up to violence, any scoundrel might slay him; the man who 
 dared to favor him was to be taken prisoner and his goods 
 confiscated. Luther's writings were to be burned. 
 
 His enemies hurried to destroy the daring monk. 
 They had failed to prevent his departure, protected by im- 
 perial safe-conduct, but they would hasten so much the 
 more to expedite his ruin. The papal legate did all in his 
 power to induce the Emperor to execute the edict. Noth- 
 ing less than Luther's death would satisfy that " holy " man. 
 But the Emperor's political entanglements were such that 
 he needed the assistance of Luther's mighty friends. He 
 could not afford to offend these just now. 
 
 At last Aleander had prevailed upon the Emperor to 
 sign the edict which made of Luther an outlaw in the em- 
 pire. In the old, venerable cathedral after divine service 
 the Emperor had placed his signature under the cruel 
 document. He signed it on the 28th day of May, when the 
 Diet had been adjourned, but it was dated back the 8th of 
 May, in order to make the impression that it had been 
 done at the direction of the Diet. Thus enemies were 
 busy trying to accomplish his ruin, friends were active in 
 providing for his protection, but he commended himself to 
 God, and prayed that God's Word might prosper and gain 
 the victory.
 
 94 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 Inhabitants of Mexico. 
 
 Prescott's Conquest of Mexico. 
 
 The civilization which the Aztec and Tezcucan races of 
 Mexico had reached at the time of their conquest by Cortes was 
 scarcely inferior to that of our Saxon ancestors, under Alfred. 
 But their degrading superstition and their human sacrifices held 
 them captive in a fearful thraldom, and prevented them from 
 any higher advance in mental science or morals. Without 
 Christianity a people may make some progress in material things, 
 but moral corruption will spread, while superstition and cruelty 
 reign. 
 
 Human sacrifices were adopted by the Aztecs early in the 
 fourteenth century, about two hundred years before the Con- 
 quest. Rare at first, they became more frequent with the 
 wider extent of their empire, till, at length, almost every festi- 
 val was closed with this cruel abomination. These religious 
 ceremonials were generally arranged in such a manner as to 
 afford a type of the most prominent circumstances in the char- 
 acter or history of the deity who was the object of them. A 
 single example will suffice. 
 
 One of their most important festivals was that in honor 
 of the god Tezcatlipoca, whose rank was inferior only to that 
 of the Supreme Being. He was called " the soul of the 
 world " and supposed to have been its creator. He was de- 
 picted as a handsome man, endowed with perpetual youth. 
 A year before the intended sacrifice, a captive, distinguished 
 for his personal beauty, and without a blemish on his body, 
 was selected to represent this deity. Certain tutors took 
 charge of him, and instructed him how to perform his new 
 part with becoming grace and dignity. He was arrayed in 
 a splendid dress, regaled with incense and with a profusion 
 of sweet-scented flowers, of which the ancient Mexicans were 
 as fond as their descendants at the present day. When he 
 went abroad, he was attended by a train of the royal pages, 
 and, as he halted in the streets to play some favorite melody, 
 the crowd prostrated themselves before him, and did him 
 homage as the representative of their good deity. In this 
 way he led an easy, luxurious life, till within a month of his 
 sacrifice. Four beautiful girls, bearing the names of the 
 principal goddesses, were then selected to share the honors of 
 his bed ; and with them he continued to live in idle dalliance,
 
 INHABITANTS OF MEXICO. 95 
 
 feasted at the banquets of the principal nobles, who paid him 
 all the honors of a divinity. 
 
 At length the fatal day of sacrifice arrived. The term of 
 his short-lived glories was at an end. He was stripped of his 
 gaudy apparel, and bade adieu to the fair partners of his 
 revelries. One of the royal barges transported him across 
 the lake to a temple which rose on its margin, about a league 
 from the city. Hither the inhabitants of the capital flocked 
 to witness the consummation of the ceremony. As the sad 
 procession wound up the sides of the pyramid, the unhappy 
 victim threw away his gay chaplets of flowers, and broke in 
 pieces the musical instruments with which he had solaced the 
 hours of captivity. On the summit he was received by six 
 priests, whose long and matted locks flowed disorderly over 
 their sable robes, covered with hieroglyphic scrolls of mystic 
 import. They led him to the sacrificial stone, a huge block 
 of jasper, with its upper surface somewhat convex. On this 
 the prisoner was stretched. Five priests secured his head and 
 his limbs; while the sixth clad in a scarlet mantle, em- 
 blematic of his bloody office, dexterously opened the breast 
 of the wretched victim with a sharp razor of itstli, a volcanic 
 substance, hard as flint, and, inserting his hand in the wound, 
 tore out the palpitating heart. The minister of death, first 
 holding this up towards the sun, an object of worship through- 
 out Anahuac, cast it at the feet of the deity to whom the 
 temple was devoted, while the multitudes below prostrated 
 themselves in humble adoration. The tragic story of this 
 prisoner was expounded by the priests as the type of human 
 destiny, which, brilliant in its commencement, too often closes 
 in sorrow and disaster. 
 
 Such was the form of human sacrifice usually practiced by 
 the Aztecs. It was the same that often met the indignant eyes 
 of the Europeans, in their progress through the country, and 
 from the dreadful doom of which they themselves were not 
 exempted. There were, indeed, some occasions when pre- 
 liminary tortures, of the most exquisite kind, with which it 
 is unnecessary to shock the reader, were inflicted, but they 
 always terminated with the bloody ceremony above described. 
 It should be remarked, however, that such tortures were not 
 the spontaneous suggestions of cruelty, as with the North 
 American Indians, but were all rigorously prescribed in the
 
 96 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 Aztec ritual, and doubtless were often inflicted with the same 
 compunctious visitings which a devout familiar of the Holy 
 Office might at times experience in executing its stern decrees. 
 Women, as well as the other sex, were sometimes reserved for 
 sacrifice. On some occasions, particularly in seasons of 
 drought, at the festival of the insatiable Tlaloc, the god of 
 rain, children, for the most part infants, were offered up. 
 As they were borne along in open litters, dressed in their fes- 
 tal robes, and decked with the fresh blossoms of spring, 
 they moved the hardest heart to pity, though their cries 
 were drowned in the wild chant of the priests, who read 
 in their tears a favorable augury for their petition. These 
 innocent victims were generally bought by the priests of 
 parents who were poor, but who stifled the voice of nature, 
 probably less at the suggestions of poverty than of a 
 wretched superstition. 
 
 The most loathsome part of the story the manner in 
 which the body of the sacrificed captive was disposed of re- 
 mains yet to be told. It was delivered to the warrior who 
 had taken him in battle, and by him, after being dressed, 
 was served up in an entertainment to his friends. This was 
 not the course repast of famished cannibals, but a ban- 
 quet teeming with delicious beverages and delicate viands, 
 prepared with art, and attended by both sexes, who, as we 
 shall see hereafter, conducted themselves with all the decorum 
 of civilized life. Surely, never were refinement and the 
 extreme of barbarism brought so closely in contact with 
 each other! 
 
 Human sacrifices have been practiced by many nations, 
 not excepting the most polished nations of antiquity, but 
 never any on a scale to be compared with those in Anahuac. 
 The amount of victims immolated on its accursed altars 
 would stagger the faith of the least scrupulous believer. 
 Scarcely any author pretends to estimate the yearly sacri- 
 fices throughout the empire at less than twenty thousand, 
 and some carry the number as high as fifty ! 
 
 On great occasions, as the coronation of a king, or the 
 consecration of a temple, the number becomes still more 
 appalling. At the dedication of the great temple of Huitzil- 
 opotchli, 1486, the prisoners, who for some years had been 
 reserved for the purpose, were drawn from all quarters to
 
 INHABITANTS OF MEXICO. 97 
 
 the capital. They were ranged in files, forming a proces- 
 sion nearly two miles long. The ceremony consumed sev- 
 eral days, and seventy thousand captives are said to have 
 perished at the shrine of this terrible deity ! But who can 
 believe that so numerous a body would have suffered them- 
 selves to be led unresistingly like sheep to the slaughter? 
 Or how could their remains, too great for consumption 
 in the ordinary way, be disposed of, without breeding a pes- 
 tilence in the capital? Yet the event was of recent date, and 
 is unequivocally attested by the best informed historians. 
 One fact may be considered certain. It was customary to 
 preserve the skulls of the sacrificed in buildings appropri- 
 ated to the purpose. The companions of Cortes counted one 
 hundred and thirty-six thousand in one of these edifices! 
 Without attempting a precise calculation, therefore, it is 
 safe to conclude that thousands were yearly offered up, in 
 the different cities of Anahuac, on the bloody altars of the 
 Mexican divinities. 
 
 Indeed, the great object of war, with the Aztecs, was quite 
 as much to gather victims for their sacrifices as to extend 
 their empire. Hence it was that an enemy was never slain 
 in battle, if there were a chance of taking him alive. To 
 this circumstance the Spaniards repeatedly owed their pres- 
 ervation. When Montezuma was asked " why he had suf- 
 fered the republic of Tlascala to maintain her independence 
 on his borders," he replied, " That she might furnish him 
 with victims for his gods " ! As the supply began to fail, the 
 priests, the Dominicans of the New World, bellowed aloud 
 for more, and urged on their superstitious sovereign by the 
 denunciations of celestial wrath. Like the militant church- 
 men of Christendom in the Middle Ages, they mingled them- 
 selves in the ranks, and were conspicuous in the thickest of 
 the fight by their hideous aspect and frantic gestures. Strange 
 that, in every country, the most fiendish passions of the 
 human heart have been those kindled in the name of religion ! 
 
 The influence of these practices on the Aztec character 
 was as disastrous as might have been expected. Familiarity 
 with the bloody rites of sacrifice steeled the heart against 
 human sympathy, and begat a thirst for carnage, like that 
 excited in the Romans by the exhibitions of the circus. The 
 perpetual recurrence of ceremonies, in which the people took
 
 98 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 part, associated religion with their most intimate concerns, 
 and spread the gloom of superstition over the domestic hearth, 
 until the character of the nation wore a grave and even 
 melancholy aspect, which belongs to their descendants at the 
 present day. The influence of the priesthood, of course, be- 
 came unbounded. The sovereign thought himself honored 
 by being permitted to assist in the services of the temple. 
 Far from limiting the authority of the priests to spiritual 
 matters, he often surrendered his opinion to theirs, where 
 they were least competent to give it. It was their opposi- 
 tion that prevented the final capitulation which would have 
 saved the capital. The whole nation, from the peasant to 
 the prince, bowed their necks to the worst kind of tyranny, 
 that of a blind fanaticism. 
 
 In reflecting on the revolting usages recorded in the pre- 
 ceding pages, one finds it difficult to reconcile their existence 
 with anything like a regular form of government, or an 
 advance in civilization. Yet the Mexicans had many claims 
 to the character of a civilized community. One may, per- 
 haps, better understand the anomaly, by reflecting on the con- 
 dition of some of the most polished countries in Europe, in 
 the sixteenth century, after the establishment of the modern 
 inquisition, an institution which yearly destroyed its thou- 
 sands, by a death more painful than the Aztec sacrifices; 
 which armed the hand of brother against brother, and, 
 setting its burning seal upon the lip, did more to stay the 
 march of improvement than any other scheme ever devised 
 by a human cunning. 
 
 Human sacrifice, however cruel, has nothing in it de- 
 grading to its victim. It may be rather said to ennoble him 
 by devoting him to the gods. Although so terrible with the 
 Aztecs, it was sometimes voluntarily embraced by them, as 
 the most glorious death, and one that opened a sure passage 
 into paradise. The Inquisition, on the other hand, branded 
 its victims with infamy in this world, and consigned them to 
 everlasting perdition in the next.
 
 MASSACRE OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW'S DAY. 99 
 
 The Massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day. 
 
 Baird's History of the Rise of the Huguenots of France. 
 
 The plain, unvarnished account of this nefarious deed, by 
 which the Roman Catholics of France tried to massacre their 
 Protestant fellow-citizens, is a fearful and unanswerable in- 
 dictment against that wicked and ill-fated king, Charles IX 
 of France; but it is even a more positive and unmistakable un- 
 masking of the papacy that had goaded its poor dupes on to 
 cover themselves with infamy, while they, in a frantic effort to 
 save the decaying Romish superstition, inflicted a wound upon 
 their fair native land of France from which it never entirely 
 recovered. They are true words which the Landgrave William 
 wrote to the Electors of Saxony and of Brandenburg when he 
 heard of this unparalleled treachery : " The princes of the Augs- 
 burg Confession, can see in this inhuman incident, as in a 
 mirror, how the papists are disposed toward all the professors 
 of the pure doctrine. The Pope and his party follow even at 
 this day the rule which they followed respecting John Huss in 
 the Council of Constance. When it is their interest so to 
 act, they do not deem themselves bound to keep any faith 
 with heretics." 
 
 To the guilty plotters that was a sleepless night. Unable to 
 rest quietly, at a little before dawn, Catharine with her two 
 elder sons found her way to the portal of the Louvre, ad- 
 joining the tennis court. There, in a chamber overlooking 
 the " bassecour," they sat down to await the beginning of 
 their treacherous enterprise. If we may believe Henry of 
 Anjou, none of them as yet realized its full horrors; but as 
 they quietly watched in that hour of stillness for the first 
 signs of the coming outbreak, the report of a pistol-shot 
 reached their ears. Instantly it wrought a marvelous re- 
 vulsion in their feelings. Whether the shot wounded or killed 
 any one, they knew not; but it brought up vividly to their 
 imaginations the results of the terrible deluge of blood whose 
 flood-gates they had raised. Hastily they send a servant to 
 the Duke of Guise, and countermand the instructions of the 
 evening, and bid him do no injury to the admiral. It is too 
 late! The messenger soon returns with the tidings that 
 Coligny is already dead, that the work is about to begin in 
 all the rest of the city. This news produces a fresh change. 
 With one of those fluctuations which are so easy for souls 
 that have no firm or established principles, but shift accord- 
 ing to the deceptive, ever-varying tide of apparent interest,
 
 100 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 the mother and her sons return heartily to their former pur- 
 pose. The die is cast, the deed is half done; let it be fully 
 and boldly consummated. No room now for pity or regret. 
 
 It was a Sunday morning, the twenty-fourth of August 
 a day sacred in the Roman calendar to the memory of Saint 
 Bartholomew. Torches and blazing lights had been burning 
 all night in the streets to render the task easy. The houses 
 in which Protestants lodged had been distinctly marked with 
 a white cross. The assassins themselves had agreed upon 
 badges for mutual recognition a white cross on the hat, and 
 a handkerchief tied about the right arm. The signal for 
 beginning was to be given by the great bell of the " Palais 
 de Justice " on the island of the old " cite." 
 
 The preparations had not been so cautiously made but that 
 they attracted the notice of some of the Huguenots living 
 near Coligny. Going out to inquire the meaning of the clash 
 of arms, and the unusual light in the streets, they received 
 the answer that there was to be a mock combat in the Louvre 
 a pleasure castle was to be assaulted for the king's diversion. 
 But as they went farther and approached the Louvre, their 
 eyes were greeted by the sight of more torches and a great 
 number of armed men. The guards, full of the contemplated 
 plot, could not refrain from insults. It soon came to blows, 
 and a Gascon soldier wounded a Protestant gentleman with 
 his halberd. It may have been at this time that the shot 
 was fired which Catharine and her sons heard from the open 
 window of the Louvre. Declaring that the fury of the troops 
 could no longer be restrained, the queen now gave orders to 
 ring the bell of the neighboring church of St. Germain 
 1'Auxerrois. 
 
 Meantime Henry of Guise, Henry of Valois, the Bastard of 
 Angouleme, and their attendants, had reached the admiral's 
 house. The wounded man was almost alone. Could there 
 be any clearer proof of the rectitude of his purpose, of the 
 utter falsity of the charges of conspiracy with which his 
 enemies afterward attempted to blacken his memory? 
 Guerchy and other Protestant gentlemen had expressed the 
 desire to spend the night with him; but his son-in-law, Tel- 
 igny, full of confidence in Charles's good intentions, ha3 de- 
 clined their offers, and had, indeed, himself gone to his own 
 lodgings, not far off, in the Rue St. Honore. With Coligny
 
 MASSACRE OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW'S DAY. 101 
 
 were Merlin, his chaplain, Pare, the king's surgeon, his ensign 
 Cornaton, La Bonne, Yolet, and four or five servants. In the 
 court below there were five of Navarre's Swiss guards on 
 duty. Coligny, awakened by the growing noise in the streets, 
 had at first felt no alarm, so implicitly did he rely upon the 
 protestations of Charles, so confident was he that Cosseins and 
 his guards would readily quell any rising of the Parisians. 
 But now some one knocks at the outer door, and demands an 
 entrance in the king's name. Word is given to La Bonne, 
 who at once descends and unlocks. It is Cosseins, followed 
 by the soldiers whom he commands. No sooner does he pass 
 the threshold than he stabs La Bonne with his dagger. Next 
 he seeks the admiral's room, but it is not easy to reach it, 
 for the brave Swiss, even at the risk of their own lives, de- 
 fend first the door leading to the stairs, and then the stairs 
 themselves. And now Coligny could no longer doubt the 
 meaning of the uproar. He rose from his bed, and, wrapping 
 his dressing-gown about him, asked his chaplain to pray ; 
 and while Merlin endeavored to fulfill his request, he himself 
 in audible petitions invoked Jesus Christ as his God and 
 Savior, and committed to His hands again the soul he had 
 received from Him. It was then that the person to whom we 
 are indebted for this account and he can scarcely have been 
 another than Cornaton rushed into the room. When Pare 
 asked him what the disturbance imported, he turned to the 
 admiral and said : " My lord, it is God that is calling us to 
 Himself! The house has been forced, and we have no means 
 of resistance ! " To whom the admiral, unmoved by fear, and 
 even, as all who saw him testified, without the least change of 
 countenance, replied : " For a long time have I kept myself in 
 readiness for death. As for you, save yourselves, if you can. 
 It were in vain for you to attempt to save my life. I commend 
 my soul to the mercy of God." Obedient to his directions, all 
 that were with him, save Nicholas Muss or de la Mouche, his 
 faithful German interpreter, fled to the roof, and escaped 
 under cover of the darkness. 
 
 One of Coligny's Swiss guards had been shot at the foot 
 of the stairs. When Cosseins had removed the barricade of 
 boxes that had been erected farther up, the Swiss in his 
 own company, whose uniform of green, white, and black 
 showed them to belong to the Duke of Anjou, found their
 
 102 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 countrymen on the other side, but did them no harm. Ccj- 
 seins following them, however, no sooner saw these armed 
 men than he ordered his arquebusiers to shoot, and one of 
 them fell dead. It was a German follower of Guise, named 
 Besme, who first reached and entered Coligny's chamber, 
 and who for the exploit was subsequently rewarded with 
 the hand of a natural daughter of the Cardinal of Lorraine. 
 Cosseins, Attin, Sarlaboux, and others were behind him. 
 " Is not this the Admiral ? " said Besme of the wounded man 
 whom he found quietly seated and awaiting his coming. " I 
 am he," Coligny calmly replied. " Young man, thou oughtest 
 to have respect for my old age and my feebleness; but thou 
 shalt not, nevertheless, shorten my life." There were those 
 who asserted that he added : " At least, would that some 
 man, and not this blackguard, put me to death." But most 
 of the murderers and among them Attin, who confessed 
 that never had he seen any one more assured in the presence 
 of death affirmed that Coligny said nothing beyond the 
 words first mentioned. No sooner had Besme heard the 
 admiral's reply, than, with a curse, he struck him with his 
 sword, first in the breast, and then on the head. The rest 
 took part, and quickly dispatched him. 
 
 In the court below, Guise was impatiently waiting to hear 
 that his mortal enemy was dead. " Besme," he cried out at 
 last, " have you finished ? " " It is done," the assassin replied. 
 " Monsieur le Chevalier (the Bastard of Angouleme) will 
 not believe it," again said Guise " unless he sees him with 
 his own eyes. Throw him out of the window ! " Besme and 
 Sarlaboux promptly obeyed the command. When the life- 
 less remains lay upon the pavement of the court, Henry of 
 Guise stooped down and with his handkerchief wiped away 
 the blood from the admiral's face. " I recognize him," he 
 said ; " it is he himself ! " Then, after ignobly kicking the 
 face of his fallen antagonist, he went out gayly encouraging 
 his followers : " Come, soldiers, take courage ; we have begun 
 well. Let us go on to the others, for so the king commands ! " 
 And often through the day Guise repeated the words, " The 
 king commands ; it is the king's pleasure ; it is his express 
 command ! " Just then a bell was heard, and the cry was 
 raised that the Huguenots were in arms to kill the king. 
 
 As for Admiral Coligny's body, after the head had been
 
 MASSACRE OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW'S DAY. 103 
 
 cut off by an Italian of the guard of the Duke de Nevers, 
 the trunk was treated with every indignity. The hands 
 were cut off, and it was otherwise mutilated in a shame- 
 less manner. Three days was it dragged about the streets 
 by a band of inhuman boys. Meantime the head had been 
 carried to the Louvre, where, after Catharine and Charles 
 had sufficiently feasted their eyes on the spectacle, it was 
 embalmed and sent to Rome, a grateful present to the Car- 
 dinal of Lorraine and Pope Gregory XIII. It has been 
 questioned whether the ghastly trophy ever reached its des- 
 tination. Indeed, the French court seems to have become 
 ashamed of its inhumanity, and to have regretted that so 
 startling a token of its barbarous hatred had been allowed 
 to go abroad. Accordingly, soon after the departure of 
 the courier, a second courier was dispatched in great haste 
 to Mandelot, governor of Lyons, bidding him stop the first 
 and take away from him the admiral's head. He arrived 
 too late, however; four hours before Mandelot received the 
 King's letter, " a squire of the Duke of Guise, named Pauli," 
 had passed through the city, doubtless carrying the precious 
 relic. That it was actually placed in the hands of the 
 Cardinal of Lorraine at Rome need not be doubted 
 
 While the murder of Coligny was in course of execution, 
 or but shortly after, a tragedy not less atrocious was enacted 
 in the royal palace itself. A number of Huguenot gentle- 
 men of the highest distinction were lodged in the Louvre. 
 Charles, after the admiral's wound, had suggested to the 
 King of Navarre that he would do well to invite some of 
 his friends to act as a guard against any attack that might be 
 made upon him by the Duke of Guise, whom he charac- 
 terized as a " mauvois garqon." Later on Saturday night, as 
 Margaret of Valois informs us in her Memoirs, and long 
 after she and her husband had retired, these Huguenot lords, 
 gathered around Henry of Navarre's bed to the number of 
 thirty, had discussed the occurrences of the last two eventful 
 days, and declared their purpose to go to the king on the 
 morrow and demand the punishment of the Guises. Mar- 
 garet herself had been purposely kept in ignorance of the 
 plan for the extirpation of the Protestants. For, if the Hu-
 
 104 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 guenots suspected her, because she was a Roman Catholic, 
 the papists suspected her equally because she had married 
 a Protestant. On parting with her mother for the night, 
 her elder sister Claude, Duchess of Lorraine, who happened 
 to be on a visit to the French court, had vainly attempted 
 to detain Margaret, expressing with tears the apprehen- 
 sion that some evil would befall her. But Catharine had 
 peremptorily sent her to bed, assuring her with words which, 
 seen in the light of subsequent revelations, approach the 
 climax of profanity : " That, if God pleased, she would 
 receive no injury." So deep was the impression of impend- 
 ing danger made upon Margaret's mind that she remained 
 awake, she tells us, until morning, when her husband arose, 
 saying that he would go and divert himself with a game 
 of tennis until Charles should awake. After his departure, 
 the Queen of Navarre, relieved of her misgivings, as the 
 night was now spent, ordered her maid to lock her door, 
 and composed herself to sleep. 
 
 Meantime the Protestant gentlemen who accompanied Na- 
 varre, and all the others who lodged in the Louvre, had been 
 disarmed by Nanqay, captain of the guard. In this defense- 
 less condition ten or twelve of their number were conducted, 
 one by one, to the gate of the building. Here soldiers stood 
 in readiness, and dispatched them with their halberds as 
 they successively made their appearance. Such was the fate 
 of the brave Pardaillan, of St. Martin, of Boursis, of Beau- 
 vais, former tutor of Henry of Navarre, and of others, some 
 of whom in a loud voice called upon Charles, whom they 
 saw at a window, an approving spectator of the butchery, 
 to remember the solemn pledges he had given them. M. de 
 Piles that brave Huguenot captain, whose valor, if it did 
 not save St. Jean d'Angely in the third civil war, had at least 
 detained the entire Roman Catholic army for seven weeks 
 before fortifications that were none of the best, and rendered 
 Moncontour a field barren of substantial fruits was the 
 object of special hatred, and his conduct was particularly 
 remarked for its magnanimity. Observing among the by- 
 standers a Roman Catholic acquaintance in whose honor he 
 might perhaps confide, he stripped himself of his cloak, and 
 would have handed it to him, with the words : " De Piles 
 makes you a present of this; remember hereafter the death
 
 . MASSACRE OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW'S DAY. 105 
 
 of him who is now so unjustly put to death ! " " Mon capi- 
 taine," answered the other, fearful of incurring the enmity 
 of Catharine and Charles, " I am not of the company of these 
 persons. I thank you for your cloak ; but I cannot take it 
 upon such conditions." The next moment M. de Piles fell, 
 pierced by the halberd of one of the archers of the guard. 
 " These are the men," cried the murderers at their bloody 
 work, " who resorted to violence, in order to kill the king 
 afterward." One of the victims marked out for the slaughter 
 escaped the death of his fellows. Margaret of Valois had not 
 been long asleep, when her slumbers were rudely disturbed by 
 loud blows struck upon the door, and shouts of " Navarre ! 
 Navarre ! " Her attendant, supposing it to be Henry himself, 
 hastily opened the door; when there rushed in instead, a 
 Huguenot nobleman, the Viscount de Leran, wounded in the 
 arm by sword and halberd, and pursued by four archers. In 
 his terror he threw himself on Margaret's bed, and when she 
 jumped up, in doubt of what could be the meaning of this 
 strange incident, he clung to her night-dress which was 
 drenched with his blood. Nanqay angrily reproved the indis- 
 cretion of his soldiers, and Margaret, leaving the Huguenot 
 in her room to have his wounds dressed, suffered herself to 
 be conducted to the chamber of her sister, the Duchess of 
 Lorraine. It was but a few steps; but, on the way, a Hu- 
 guenot was killed at three paces' distance from her, and two 
 others the first gentleman of the King of Navarre, and his 
 first valet-de-chambre ran to her, imploring her to save 
 their lives. She sought and obtained the favor on her 
 knees before Catharine and Charles. A few other Hu- 
 guenots who were in the Louvre were ready to purchase 
 their lives at any price, even to that of abjuring their faith. 
 They obtained pardon on promising the king to comply with 
 all his commands ; and this, we are told, " the more easily, 
 as Charles very well knew that they had little or no 
 religion." 
 
 * * * 
 
 The frenzy that had fallen upon Paris affected all classes 
 alike. Every feeling of pity seemed to have been blotted 
 out. Natural affection disappeared. A man's foes were 
 those of his own household. On the plea of religious zeal
 
 106 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 the most barbarous acts were committed. Spire Niquet, a 
 poor bookbinder, whose scanty earnings barely sufficed to 
 support the wants of his seven children, was half-roasted 
 in a bonfire made of his own books, and then dragged to 
 the river and drowned. The weaker sex was not spared 
 in the universal carnage, and, as in a town taken by assault, 
 suffered outrages that were worse than death. Matron and 
 maiden alike welcomed as merciful the blow that liberated 
 them from an existence now rendered insupportable. 
 Women approaching maternity were selected for more ex- 
 cruciating torments, and savage delight was exhibited in 
 destroying the unborn fruit of the womb. Nor was any 
 rank respected. Madame d'Yverny, the niece of Cardinal 
 Bric.onnet, was recognized, as she fled, by the costly under- 
 clothing that appeared from beneath the shabby habit of 
 a nun which she had assumed; and, after suffering every 
 indignity, upon her refusal to go to mass, was thrown from 
 a bridge into the Seine and drowned. Occasionally the 
 women rivaled the cruelty of the men. A poor carpenter, 
 of advanced age, with whom the author of the " Tocsain 
 contre les massacreurs " was personally acquainted, had 
 been taken by night and cast into the river. He swam, 
 however, to a bridge, and succeeded in climbing up by its 
 timbers, and so fled naked to the house of a relative near 
 the " Cousture Sainte Catherine" where his wife had taken 
 refuge. But, instead of welcoming him, his wife drove him 
 away, and he was soon recaptured and killed. It is related 
 that the daughter of one Jean de Coulogne, a mercer of the 
 " Palais," betrayed her own mother to death, and subse- 
 quently married one of the murderers. The very innocence 
 of childhood furnished no sufficient protection so literally 
 did the pious Catholics of Paris interpret the oft-repeated 
 exhortations of their holy father to exterminate not only 
 the roots of heresy, but the very fibers of the roots. Two 
 infants, whose parents had just been murdered, were car- 
 ried in a hod and cast into the Seine. A little girl was 
 plunged naked in the blood of her father and mother, with 
 horrible oaths and threats that, if she should become a Hu- 
 guenot, the like fate would befall her. And a crowd of boys, 
 between nine and ten years of age, was seen dragging 
 through the streets the body of a babe yet in its swaddling-
 
 MASSACRE OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW'S DAY. 107 
 
 clothes, which they had fastened to a rope by means of a 
 belt fied about its neck. 
 
 The bodies of the more inconspicuous victims lay for 
 hours in whatever spot they happened to be killed; but the 
 court required ocular demonstration that the leaders of the 
 Huguenots who had been most prominent in the late wars 
 were really dead. Accordingly the naked corpses of Soubise, 
 of Guerchy, of Beaudine, d'Acier's brother, and of others 
 were dragged from all quarters to the square in front of 
 the Louvre. There, as an indignant contemporary writes, 
 extended in a long row, they lay exposed to the view of the 
 varlets, of whom, when alive, they had been the terror. 
 Cruelty and lust are twin sisters: when the one is at hand, 
 the other is generally not far distant. The court of Cath- 
 arine de' Medici was noted for its impurity, as it was infa- 
 mous for its recklessness of human life. It was not out of 
 keeping with its general reputation that toward evening a 
 bevy of ladies among them the queen mother tripped down 
 the palace stairs to feast their eyes upon the sight of the 
 uncovered dead. Indeed, the king, the queen mother, and 
 their intimate friends seemed to be in an ecstasy of joy. 
 They indulged in boisterous laughter as the successive re- 
 ports of the municipal authorities, from hour to hour, 
 brought in tidings of the extent of the massacre. " The war 
 is now ended in reality," they were heard to say, " and we 
 shall henceforth live in peace." The Duke of Anjou took 
 a more active part. In the street and on the Pont de Notre 
 Dame he was to be seen encouraging the assassins. The Duke 
 of Montpensier was surpassed by no one in his zealous ad- 
 vocacy of the murderous work. " Let every man exert him- 
 self to the utmost," he cried, as he rode through the streets, 
 " if he wishes to prove himself a good servant to the king." 
 Tavannes, if we may believe Brantome's account, endeavored 
 to rival him, and, all day long, as he rode about amid the 
 carnage, amused himself by facetiously crying to the people : 
 " Bleed ! Bleed ! The doctors say that bleeding is as good 
 in the month of August as in May." 
 
 Of the Duke of Alenqon it was noticed that, alone of 
 Catharine's sons, he took no part in the massacre. The 
 Protestants even regarded him as their friend, and the rumor 
 was current that the pity he exhibited excited the indignation
 
 108 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 of his mother and brothers. Indeed, Catharine, it was said, 
 openly told him that, if he ventured to meddle with her plans, 
 she would put him in a sack and throw him into the river. 
 
 Of the pastors of the Church of Paris, it was noticed as 
 a remarkable circumstance that but two Buirette and Des- 
 gorris were killed; for it was certain that no lives were 
 more eagerly sought than theirs. But several Protestant 
 pastors had wonderful escapes. The celebrated D'Espine 
 the converted monk who took part in the Colloquy of 
 Poissy was in company with Madame d'Yverny when her 
 disguise was discovered, but he was not recognized. In the 
 case of Merlin, chaplain of Admiral Coligny, the divine inter- 
 position seemed almost as distinct as in that of the prophet 
 Elijah. After reluctantly leaving Coligny, at his earnest 
 request, and clambering over the roof of a neighboring house, 
 he fell through an opening into a garret full of hay. Not 
 daring to show himself, since he knew not whether he would 
 encounter friends or foes, he remained for three days in this 
 retreat, his sole food an egg which a hen daily laid within 
 his reach. 
 
 The future minister of Henry IV, Maximilien de Bethune, 
 Duke of Sully, at this time a boy of twelve and a student in 
 the college of Burgundy in Paris, has left us in his Economics 
 royales a thrilling account of his escape. Awakened, about 
 three o'clock in the morning, by the uproar in the streets, 
 his tutor and his valet-de-chambre went out to learn the 
 occasion of it, and never returned. They were doubtless 
 among the first victims. Sully's trembling host a Protestant 
 who consented through fear to abjure his faith now came in, 
 and advised the youth to save his life by going to mass. Sully 
 was not prepared to take this counsel, and, so putting on his 
 scholar's gown, he ventured upon the desperate step of trying 
 to reach the college. A horrible scene presented itself to view. 
 Everywhere men were breaking into nouses, or slaughtering 
 their captives in the public streets, while the cry of " Kill 
 the Huguenots ! " was heard on all sides. Sully himself owed 
 his preservation to two thick volumes of Heures Romish 
 books of devotion which he had the presence of mind to 
 take under his arm, and which effectually disarmed the sus- 
 picions of the three successive bands of soldiers that stopped 
 him. At the college, after with difficulty gaining admission,
 
 MASSACRE OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW'S DAY. 109 
 
 he incurred still greater danger. Happily the principal, M. Du 
 Faye, was a kind-hearted man. In vain was he urged, by two 
 priests who were his guests, to surrender the Huguenot boy 
 to death, saying that the order was to massacre even the very 
 babes at the breast. Du Faye would not consent; and after 
 having secretly kept Sully locked up for three days in a closet, 
 he found means to restore him to his friends. 
 
 While the massacre begun on St. Bartholomew's Day was 
 spreading with the speed of some foul contagion to the most 
 distant parts of France, the tidings had been carried beyond 
 its boundaries, and excited a thrill of delight, or a cry of ex- 
 ecration, according to the character and sympathies of those 
 to whom they came. Nowhere was the surprise greater, nor 
 the joy more intense, than at Rome. Pope Gregory, like his 
 predecessor, had been very skeptical respecting the pious in- 
 tentions of the French court. Nuncios and legates brought 
 them, it is true, a great profusion of brilliant assurances, on 
 the part of Catharine and Charles, of devotion to the Roman 
 Church, and to the interests of the Pontifical See, but accom- 
 panied by lugubrious vaticinations of their own, based upon 
 the tolerant course on which the king, under Coligny's guid- 
 ance, had entered. The Cardinal of Alessandria had made 
 little account of the ring offered him by Charles as a pledge 
 of his sincerity, and preferred to wait for the proof which the 
 sequel might exhibit. The last defiant act of the French mon- 
 arch, in marrying his sister to a professed heretic, and within 
 the degrees of consanguinity prohibited by the Church, with- 
 out obtaining the Pope's dispensation, served to confirm all 
 the sinister suspicions entertained at Rome. Under these cir- 
 cumstances the papal astonishment and rejoicing can well be 
 imagined, when couriers sent by the Guises brought the intel- 
 ligence of the massacre to the Cardinal of Lorraine, and when 
 letters from the King of France and from the Nuncio Salviati 
 in Paris to the Pope himself confirmed its accuracy. Salviati's 
 letters having been read in the full consistory, on the sixth 
 of September, the pontiff and the cardinals resolved to go at 
 once in solemn procession to the church of San Marco, there 
 to render thanks to God for the signal blessing conferred upon 
 the Roman See and all Christendom. A solemn mass was ap-
 
 110 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 pointed for the succeeding Monday and a jubilee published for 
 the whole Christian world. In the evening the cannon from 
 the Castle of San Angelo, and firearms discharged here and 
 there throughout the city, proclaimed to all the joy felt for so 
 signal a victory over the enemies of the Church. For three 
 successive nights there was a general illumination. Cardinal 
 Orsini, who seems to have been on the point of starting for 
 France as a special legate to urge the court to withdraw from 
 the course of toleration, now received different instructions, 
 and was commissioned to congratulate Charles, and to encour- 
 age him to pursue the path upon which he had entered. 
 Charles of Lorraine, as was natural, distinguished himself 
 for his demonstrations of joy. He made a present of one 
 thousand crowns to the bearer of such glad tidings. Under 
 his auspices a brilliant celebration of the event took place 
 in the church of San Luigi de' Francesi, which was mag- 
 nificently decorated for the occasion. Gregory himself, 
 attended by his cardinals and bishops, by princes, for- 
 eign ambassadors, and large numbers of nobles and of 
 the people, walked thither under the pontifical canopy, and 
 high mass was said. The Cardinal of Lorraine had af- 
 fixed above the entrance a pompous declaration, in the form 
 of a congratulatory notice from Charles IX to Gregory and 
 the " Sacred College of Cardinals," wherein the Very ChVis- 
 tian King renders thanks to Heaven that, " inflamed by 
 zeal for the Lord God of Hosts, like a smiting angel dirinely 
 sent, he had suddenly destroyed by a single slaughter almost 
 all the heretics and enemies of his kingdom." The latinity 
 of the placard might not be above reproach; but it is certain 
 that its sentiments received the cordial approval of the as- 
 sembled prelates. Set forth in golden characters, and deco- 
 rated with festive leaves and ribbons, it proclaimed that the 
 hierarchy of the Roman Church had no qualms of conscience 
 in indorsing the traitorous deed of Charles and Catharine. 
 But still more unequivocal proofs were not wanting. A well- 
 known medal was struck in honor of the event, bearing on 
 the one side the head of the Pope and the words " Gregorius 
 XIII. Pont. Max. An. I.," and on the other an angel with 
 cross and sword pursuing the heretics, and the superscrip- 
 tion, "Ugonottorum strages, 1572." 
 
 By the order of the Pope, the famous Vasari painted in
 
 MASSACRE OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW'S DAY. Ill 
 
 the Sala Regia of the Vatican palace several pictures repre- 
 senting different scenes in the Parisian massacre. Upon one 
 an inscription was placed which tersely expressed the true 
 state of the case : " Pontifex Colinii necem probat." The 
 paintings may still be seen in the magnificent room which 
 serves as antechamber to the Sistine Chapel. 
 
 To the French ambassador, M. de Ferralz, Gregory ex- 
 pressed in the most extravagant terms his satisfaction, and 
 that of the College of Cardinals, not only with the events of 
 Paris, but with the news daily coming to Rome of similar 
 massacres in progress in different cities of France. He con- 
 vinced Ferralz that no more delightful tidings could hare 
 reached the pontifical court. The battle of Lepanto could not 
 compare with it. " Tell your master," said he to the envoy 
 at the conclusion of his audience, " that this event has given 
 me a hundred times more pleasure than fifty victories like 
 that which the League obtained over the Turk last year." 
 In the excess of his joy he did not forget to enjoin on every 
 one he spoke to, especially all Frenchmen, to light bonfires 
 in honor of the massacre, hinting that whoever should fail 
 to do so must be unsound in the faith. A few weeks later, 
 the pontiff shocked even some devout Roman Catholics by 
 allowing Cardinal Lorraine and the French ambassador to 
 present to him Maurevel, the assassin who had fired the 
 arquebuse shot at Admiral Coligny. 
 
 " The pontiff," says his countryman, the historian Adriani, 
 " and all Italy universally rejoiced greatly, and forgave the 
 king and queen their previous dissimulation." For the 
 French at Rome now pretended that the massacre had long 
 been planned by their monarch, and that every favor to the 
 Huguenots for the past two years had been shown to them 
 merely for the purpose of lulling them into a false security. 
 The Pope accepted the plea without troubling himself much 
 whether it were true or not, satisfied as he was with the event. 
 But not so the Spanish envoy at the Roman court, Don Juan 
 de Cuniga. " The French wish to give the impression," he 
 wrote to his master, " that the king meditated this blow from 
 the time he made peace with the Huguenots; and in order 
 that it may be believed that he was capable of preparing it 
 and concealing it until the proper time for the execution, 
 they attribute to him stratagems which do not seem allow-
 
 112 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 able even against heretics and rebels. I deem it certain 
 that, if the shooting of the arquebuse at the admiral was a 
 thing projected a few days beforehand, and authorized by 
 the king, all the rest was inspired by circumstances." 
 Equally positive, though not at all doubtful respecting the 
 morality of the transaction, and more jubilant, was the 
 Nuncio Salviati, in Paris. While desiring that the Cardi- 
 nal Secretary " should kiss the feet of his Holiness in his 
 name," and " rejoicing with him in the bowels of his heart 
 at the blessed and honorable commencement of his pontif- 
 icate," while declaring that, despite his previous belief that 
 the court of France would not much longer tolerate the 
 admiral's arrogance, he would never have imagined the 
 tenth part of what he now saw with his own eyes, he also 
 stated he could not bring himself to believe that, had the 
 admiral been killed by Maurevel's shot, so much would have 
 been done by a great deal. Now, however, " the queen 
 intended not only to revoke the Edict of Pacification, but 
 by means of justice to restore the ancient observance of 
 
 the Catholic faith." 
 
 * * * 
 
 Before dismissing the consideration of the stupendous 
 crime for which divine vengeance to use the words of 
 Sully " made France atone by twenty-six consecutive 
 years of disaster, carnage, and horror," it is at once inter- 
 esting and important to glance at a historical question 
 which still agitates the world, and for a correct and im- 
 partial solution of which we are, perhaps, more favorably 
 situated than were even the contemporaries of the event. I 
 allude to the inquiry respecting the extent to which the 
 Roman Church, and the Pope in particular, must be held 
 responsible for the Massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day. 
 
 So far as Queen Catharine was concerned, (and the 
 same is true of some of her advisers,) it is admitted by all 
 that no zeal for religion controlled her conduct. A disso- 
 lute and ambitious woman, and, moreover, almost an avowed 
 atheist, she could not have acted from a sincere but mis- 
 taken belief that it was her duty to exterminate heresy. 
 But among the inferior agents it can scarcely be doubted 
 that there were some who believed themselves to be doing
 
 y MASSACRE OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW'S DAY. 113 
 
 God service in ridding the world of the enemies of His 
 Church. Had not the preachers in their sermons extolled 
 the deed as the most meritorious that could be performed, 
 and as furnishing an unquestionable passport to paradise? 
 The number, however, of these religious assassins if so 
 we may style them could be but small in comparison with 
 the multitude of those to whom religion served merely as a 
 pretext, while cupidity or partisan hatred was the true mo- 
 tive; men who, nevertheless, derived their incentive from 
 the lessons of their spiritual guides, and who would never 
 have dreamed of giving loose rein to their passions but for 
 the suggestions of these sanguinary teachers. At the bar of 
 history the priesthood that countenanced assassination must 
 be held no less accountable for the actions of this class than 
 for the deeds of more sincere devotees. 
 
 It is immaterial to the question of the responsibility of 
 the Papal Church whether the queen mother and the king's 
 ministers were honest, or were Roman Catholics, or, indeed, 
 Christians only in name. If the Pope had for years, by 
 letter and by his accredited agents, been insinuating that 
 the life of a heretic was a thing of little value; if he sys- 
 tematically advocated a war of extermination, and opposed 
 every negotiation for peace, every truce, every edict of 
 pacification that did not look to the annihilation of the 
 Huguenots; if he had familiarized the minds of king and 
 queen with the thought of justifiable massacre, it is of little 
 importance to ascertain whether his too ready pupils exe- 
 cuted the injunction from a pure desire to further the in- 
 terests of the Papal See or with more selfish designs. Un- 
 fortunately for humanity and for religion, the course I have 
 indicated was that which had been consistently and inde- 
 fatigably pursued during the entire pontificate of Pius V, 
 and during the few months that had elapsed since the 
 election of his successor. 
 
 Contrary to the firm persuasion of the Protestants who 
 wrote contemporary accounts of the massacre, we must in 
 all probability, as we have already seen, acquit Gregory 
 XIII of any knowledge of the disaster impending over the 
 admiral and the Huguenots. It was what he wished for 
 and prayed for, but with little hope of seeing the accom- 
 plishment. In fact, he was brought to the verge of despair
 
 114 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 in respect to the hold of the papacy upon the kingdom of 
 France. Nuncio Salviati, at Paris, had, indeed, conceived 
 the hope that some disaster would befall the Huguenots in 
 consequence of Coligny's imprudence and the desperation 
 of the queen mother and of the Roman Catholic party at 
 finding the authority slipping from their hands. But his 
 astonishment and that of the pontiff at the general massacre 
 of the Protestants was surpassed only by their common de- 
 light. The fragments of the dispatches from Salviati to the 
 Roman Secretary of State which have been suffered to find 
 their way into print seem to settle this point beyond all 
 controversy. 
 
 We have in previous chapters seen the Pope assisting 
 Charles with money and troops in the prosecution of the 
 last two wars against the Huguenots. But this aid was 
 accompanied with perpetual exhortations to do the work 
 thoroughly, and not to repeat the mistakes committed by 
 his predecessors. " That heresy cannot be tolerated in the 
 same kingdom with the worship of the Catholic religion," 
 writes Pius V to Sigismund Augustus of Poland, " is proved 
 by that very example of the kingdom of France, which your 
 Majesty brings up for the purpose of excusing yourself. If 
 the former kings of France had not suffered this evil to 
 grow by neglect and indulgence, they would easily have 
 been able to extirpate heresy and secure the peace and quiet 
 of their realm." Of all the leaders of the day, the Duke of 
 Alva alone earned, by his unrelenting destruction of heretics, 
 the unqualified approval of the pontiff. When the tidings 
 of the successes of the " Blood Council " reached Rome, Pius 
 could not contain himself for joy. He must congratulate 
 the duke, and spur him on in a course upon which the 
 blessing of Heaven so manifestly rested. " Nothing can oc- 
 cur to us," said he, " more glorious for the dignity of the 
 Church, or more delightful to the truly paternal disposition 
 of our mind to all men, than when we perceive that war- 
 riors and very brave generals, such as we previously knew 
 you to be and now find you in this most perilous war, con- 
 sult not their own interest, nor their own glory alone, but 
 war in behalf of that Almighty God who stands ready to 
 crown His soldiers contending for Him and His glory, not
 
 MASSACRE OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW'S DAY. 115 
 
 with a corruptible crown, but with one that is eternal and 
 fadeth not away." 
 
 With this express indorsement of Alva's merciless cruelty 
 before us, it is not difficult to understand what Pius de- 
 manded of Charles of France. Early in 1569, while sending 
 the Duke of Sforza with auxiliaries, he wrote to the king: 
 " When God shall by His kindness have given to you and to 
 us, as we hope, the victory, it will be your duty to punish 
 the heretics and their leaders with all severity, and thus 
 justly to avenge not only your own wrongs, but those of 
 Almighty God, in order that, by your execution of the 
 righteous judgment of God, they may pay the penalty which 
 they have deserved by their crimes." After the battle of 
 Jarnac and Conde's death, Pius wrote promptly, bidding 
 Charles " pursue and destroy the remnants of the enemy, 
 and wholly tear up not only the roots of an evil so great, 
 and which had gathered to itself such strength, but even 
 the very fibers of the roots." He begged him not to spare 
 those who had not spared God nor their king. To Catharine 
 and to the Duke of Anjou, to the Cardinal of Bourbon, and 
 to the Cardinal of Lorraine, the same language was ad- 
 dressed. Again and again the Pope held up the example of 
 Saul, who disregarded the commands of the Lord through 
 Samuel and spared the Amalekites, as a solemn warning 
 against disobedience. To the queen mother he said : " Under 
 no circumstances and from no considerations ought the 
 enemies of God to be spared. If your Majesty shall con- 
 tinue, as heretofore, to seek with right purpose of mind and 
 a simple heart the honor of Almighty God, and shall assail 
 the foes of the Catholic religion openly and freely even to 
 extermination, be well assured that the divine assistance 
 will never fail, and that still greater victories will be pre- 
 pared by God for you and for the king, your son, until, 
 when all shall have been destroyed, the pristine worship of 
 the Catholic religion shall be restored to that most illustrious 
 realm." The Duke of Anjou was urged to incite his brother 
 to punish the rebels with great severity, and to be inexorable 
 in refusing the prayers of all who would intercede for them. 
 Charles was given to understand that if, induced by any 
 motives, he should defer the punishment of God's enemies,
 
 116 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 he would certainly tempt the divine patience to change to 
 anger. 
 
 The victory of Moncontour furnished an occasion for 
 fresh exhortations to the king not to neglect to inflict upon 
 the enemies of Almighty God the punishments fixed by the 
 laws. " For what else would this be," said Pius, " than to 
 make of no effect the blessing of God, namely, victory itself, 
 whose fruit indeed consists in this, that by just punishment 
 the execrable heretics, common enemies, having been taken 
 away, the former peace and tranquillity should be restored 
 to the kingdom. And do not allow yourself, by the sugges- 
 tion of the empty name of pity, to be deceived so far as to 
 seek, by pardoning divine injuries, to obtain false praise for 
 compassion ; for nothing is more cruel than that pity and 
 compassion which is extended to the impious and those who 
 deserve the worst of torments." The work begun by victories 
 in the field was, therefore, to be completed by the institution 
 of inquisitors of the faith in every city, and the adoption 
 of such other measures as might, with God's help, at length 
 create the kingdom anew and restore it to its former state. 
 
 As often as rumors of negotiations for peace reached him, 
 Pius was in anguish of soul, and wrote to Charles, to 
 Catharine, to Anjou, to the French cardinals, in almost the 
 same words. He protested that, as light has no communion 
 with darkness, so no compact between Catholics and heretics 
 could be other than feigned and full of treachery. As the 
 prospect of peace grew more distinct, his prognostications of 
 coming disaster grew darker, and sounded almost like threats. 
 Even if the heretics, in concluding the peace, had no inten- 
 tion of laying snares, God would put it into their minds as 
 a punishment to the king. " Now, how fearful a thing it is 
 to fall into the hands of the living God, who is wont not 
 only to chastise the corrupt manners of men by war, but, 
 on account of the sins of kings and people, to dash kingdoms 
 in pieces, and to transfer them from their ancient masters 
 to new ones, is too evident to need to be proved by ex- 
 amples." When at last the peace of Saint Germain was 
 definitely concluded, the Pope did not cease to lament over 
 " a pacification in which the conquered heretics imposed 
 upon the victorious king conditions so horrible and so per- 
 nicious that he could not speak of them without tears."
 
 MASSACRE OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW'S DAY. 117 
 
 And he expressed at the same time his paternal fears lest 
 the young Charles, and those who had consented to the un- 
 holy compact, would be given over to a reprobate mind, 
 that seeing they might not see, and hearing they might not 
 hear. 
 
 To his last breath Pius retained the same thirst for the 
 blood of the heretics of France. He violently opposed the 
 marriage of the king's sister to Henry of Navarre, and in- 
 structed his envoy at the French court to bring up again 
 that " matter of conciliation so fatal to the Catholics." His 
 last letters are as sanguinary as his first. Meanwhile his 
 acts corresponded with his words, and left the King of France 
 and his mother in no doubt respecting the value which the 
 pretended vicegerent of God upon earth, and the future 
 saint, set upon the life of a heretic; for when the town of 
 Mornas was on one occasion captured by the Roman Catholic 
 forces, and a number of prisoners were taken, Pius " such," 
 his admiring biographer informs us, " was his burning zeal 
 for religion " ransomed them from the hands of their cap- 
 tors, that he might have the satisfaction of ordering their 
 public execution in the pontifical city of Avignon ! And 
 when the same holy father learned that Count Santa Fiore, 
 the commander of the papal troops sent to Charles' assistance, 
 had accepted the offer of a ransom for the life of a dis- 
 tinguished Huguenot nobleman, he wrote to him complaining 
 bitterly that he had disobeyed his orders, which were that 
 every heretic that fell into his hands should straightway 
 be put to death. As, however, Pius wanted not Huguenot 
 treasure, but Huguenot blood, with more consistency than 
 at first appears, he ordered the captive nobleman whose 
 head had been spared to be released without ransom. 
 
 With such continual papal exhortations to bloodshed, 
 before us, with such suggestive examples of the treatment 
 which heretics ought, according to the pontiff, to receive, 
 and in the light of the extravagant joy displayed at Rome 
 over the consummation of the massacre, we can scarcely 
 hesitate to find the head of the Roman Catholic Church 
 guilty if not, by a happy accident, of having known or 
 devised the precise mode of its execution, at least of having 
 long instigated and paved the way for the commission of 
 the crime. Without the teachings of Pius V, the conspiracy
 
 118 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 of Catharine and Anjou would have been almost impossible. 
 Without the preaching of priests and friars at Lent and 
 Advent, the passions of the low populace could not have been 
 inflamed to such a pitch as to render it capable of perpe- 
 trating atrocities which will forever render the reign of 
 Charles IX infamous in the French annals. 
 
 One of the most vivid accounts of the massacre in any city outside of 
 Paris is the contemporary narrative of Johann Wilhelm von Botzheim, a 
 young German, who was at the time pursuing his studies in Orleans. It 
 forms the sequel to the description of the Parisian massacre, to which 
 reference has already been made several times, and was first published 
 by Dr. F. W. Ebeling, in his " Archivalische Beitrage zur Geschichte 
 Franlcreichs unter Carl IX." (Leipsic. 1872). 129-189. It was also trans- 
 lated into French by M. Charles Read, for the number of the Bulletin de 
 la Societd de I'histoire du protestantisme frangais issued on the occasion 
 of the tercentenary of the Massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day. The chief 
 interest of the narration centers in the anxieties and dangers of the little 
 community of Germans in attendance upon the famous law school. Be- 
 sides this, however, much light is thrown upon the general features of the 
 bloody transactions. The first intimation of Coligny's wounding reached 
 the Protestants as they were returning from the preche, but created less 
 excitement because of the statement accompanying it, that Charles was 
 greatly displeased at the occurrence. That night a messenger arrived with 
 letters addressed to the provost of the city, announcing the death of the 
 admiral and the Huguenots of Paris, and enjoining the like execution at 
 Orleans. Although the letters bore the royal seal, the information they 
 contained appeared so incredible that the provost commanded the mes- 
 senger to be imprisoned until two captains, whom he at once dispatched 
 to Paris, returned bringing full confirmation of the story. The provost, a 
 man averse to bloodshed, issued, early on Monday morning, as a pre- 
 cautionary measure, an order to guard the city gates. But the control of 
 affairs rapidly passed out of his hands; and, threatened with death be- 
 cause of his moderate counsels, the provost was himself forced to take 
 refuge for safety in the citadel. Ten captains, at the head of as many 
 bands of soldiers, ruled the city, and were foremost in the work of murder 
 and rapine that now ensued. But there were other bands engaged in the 
 same occupation, not to speak of single persons acting strictly on their 
 own account. Moreover, four hundred ruffians came in from the country, 
 intent upon making up for losses which they pretended to have sustained 
 during the late civil wars. They showed no mercy to the Huguenots that 
 fell into their hands. Of the Protestants scarcely one made resistance, so 
 hopeless was their situation. Pierre Pillier, a bell-founder, had indeed 
 barred his door with iron ; but, finding that his assailants were on the 
 point of forcing the entrance, he first threw his money from a window, 
 and then, seizing his opportunity when the miscreants were scrambling 
 for their prize, deluged them with molten lead; after which he set fire to 
 bis house, and perished, with his wife and children, in the flames. 
 
 There is, happily, no need of repeating here the shocking details of the
 
 MASSACRE OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW'S DAY. 119 
 
 butchery told by the student. As a German, and not generally known 
 to be a Protestant, he managed to escape the fate of his Huguenot friends, 
 but he witnessed, and was forced to appear to applaud, the most revolting^ 
 exhibitions both of cruelty and of selfishness. His favorite professor, the 
 venerable Francois Taillebois, after having been twice plundered by bands 
 of marauders, was treacherously conducted by the second band to the 
 Loire, dispatched with the dagger, and thrown into the river. " The last 
 lecture, which he gave on Monday at nine o'clock," Bays his pupil, " was 
 on the Lix Cornelia [de sicariis] of which he made the demonstration by 
 the sacrifice of his own life." It is pitiful to read that even professors in 
 the university were not ashamed to enrich their libraries by the plunder 
 of the law-books of their colleagues, or of their scholars. The writer traced 
 his own copies of Alciat, of Mynsinger and " Speculator," to the shelves 
 of Laurent Godefroid, Professor of the Pandects, and the entire library of 
 his brother Bernhard to those of his neighbor, Dr. Beaupied, Professor 
 of Canon Law. 
 
 In the midst of the almost universal unchaining of the worst passions 
 of human or demoniacal nature, it is pleasant to note a few exceptions. 
 Some Roman Catholics were found not only unwilling to imbrue their 
 hands in the blood of their Huguenot neighbors and friends, but actually 
 ready to incur personal peril in rescuing them from assassination. Such 
 magnanimity, however, was very rare. All respect for authority human 
 or divine, all sense of shame or pity, all fear of hell and hope of heaven, 
 seemed to have been obliterated from the breasts of the murderers. The 
 blasphemous words of the furious Captain Gaillard. when opposed in his 
 plan to destroy Botrheim and his fellow Germans, truly expressed the 
 sentiments which others might possibly have hesitated to utter so dis- 
 tinctly : " Par la mort Dieu ! il faut qu'il soit. ... II n'y a ny Dieu,. 
 ny diable, ny juge qui me puisse commander. Vostre vie eat en ma 
 puissance, il fault mourir. . . . Baillezmoy mon espee, je tuerai 
 1'ung apres 1'autre, je ne saurois tuer trestous a la fois avec la pistolle." 
 Men, with blood-stained hands and clothes, boasted over their cups of hav- 
 ing plundered and murdered thirty, forty, fifty men each. At last, on Satur- 
 day afternoon, after the Huguenots had been almost all killed, an edict was 
 published prohibiting murder and pillage on pain of death. Gallows, too, 
 were erected in nearly every street to hang the disobedient ; but not a 
 man was hung, and the murders still continued. Soon after a second 
 edict directed the restoration of stolen property to its rightful owners; 
 it was a mere trick to entice any remaining Huguenot from his refuge 
 and secure his apprehension and death. The Huguenots were not even able 
 to recover, at a later time, the property they had intrusted to their 
 Roman Catholic friends in time of danger, and did not dare to bring 
 the latter before courts of justice. The Huguenots killed at Orleans, in 
 this writer's opinion, were at least fifteen hundred, perhaps even two 
 thousand, in number. 
 
 The Pope's anxiety that Charles should pursue his work of exter- 
 mination to the bitter end is but too clearly attested. In the bull pro- 
 claiming a jubilee, Gregory recites his visit, in company with his venerable 
 brethren the cardinals, to the church of San Marco, and declares his 
 object to have been not merely to render thanks to God Almighty, but 
 to beseech Him " of His immense goodness to deign to preserve and guard
 
 120 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 the king in the prosecution of so pious and salutary a design,"" and to 
 minister to his majesty " strength to purge his heretofore very religious 
 kingdom of most pestilential heresies, and restore it to the pristine 
 worship of the Catholic religion." In the same document the faithful 
 are enjoined to supplicate Heaven that what the most Christian king " has 
 by divine suggestion (Deo auctore) resolved to do, he may have the power, 
 with God's assistance (ipso operante), to fulfil." (See the text in Lord 
 Acton's letter to the London Times, of Nov. 24, 1874.) By his nuncio, 
 and subsequently by his special legate, Orsini, the pontiff, while expressing 
 his delight at " the glorious and truly incomparable achievement " of 
 Charles, repeatedly reminded his majesty of the promise which he had 
 given Salviati, that soon (infra pochi giorni) not a single Huguenot should 
 remain in all his dominions. (Dispatch of Orsini, apud Acton, ubi supra.) 
 Meanwhile there is, unfortunately, no room for doubt that the Pope was 
 fully aware of the true character of the massacre. He knew that it was 
 justified by no discovery of a conspiracy to kill the king and his brothers. 
 The first dispatch of Salviati, dated August 24, read in the consistory 
 of September 6 (see the letter from Rome appended to Capilupi, ed. of 
 1574, p. 84), contains no allusion to such a discovery (see the dispatch 
 in Mackintosh, iii. App. G). The dispatch of September 2 referred, indeed, 
 to the pretended discovery of a Protestant plot, but denounced it as not 
 only false but absurd in the extreme. " Cela n'en demeurera pas moins 
 faux en tous points, et ce serait une honte pour quiconque est a meme 
 de connaitre quelque chose aux affaires de ce monde de le croire." (Cha- 
 teaubriand's trans, apud Acton, ubi supra.) 
 
 The Bloody Mary. 
 
 Froude's History of England. 
 
 After reading the story of this bloody persecution, can any 
 one feel surprise that the English people have decided never 
 again to experiment with a ruler who is subject to the dark 
 and gloomy superstition of the Roman papacy? To see this 
 poor woman duped by blasphemous priests and driven on by 
 an ignorant zeal, fanned to a frenzy by designing prelates, 
 blinded by a more than strange enchantment to consider her 
 best friends her worst enemies, and her worst enemies her best 
 friends, is it not to see a human soul in the power of fiends? 
 The spiritual advisors who guided Mary have made her an 
 object of the ridicule of the world, but we cannot but pity the 
 deceived woman rendered so abjectly miserable by such vile 
 fanaticism. 
 
 The court and the bishops, however, were for the present 
 absolute in their own province. The persecuting acts were 
 once more upon the Statute Book; and when the realities 
 of the debates in Parliament had disappeared, the cardinal 
 and the Queen could again give the rein to their imagina- 
 tion. They had called up a phantom out of its grave, and 
 they persuaded themselves that they were witnessing the 
 resurrection of the spirit of truth, that heresy was about to
 
 THE BLOODY MARY. 121 
 
 vanish from off the English soil, like an exhalation of the 
 morning, at the brightness of the papal return. The chan- 
 cellor and the clergy were springing at the leash like hounds 
 with the game in view, fanaticism and revenge lashing them 
 forward. If the temporal schemes of the court were 
 thwarted, it was, perhaps, because Heaven desired that ex- 
 clusive attention should be given first to the salvation of 
 souls. 
 
 For all past political offenses, therefore, there was now 
 an amnesty, and such prisoners as remained unexecuted for 
 Wyatt's conspiracy were released from the Tower on the 
 i8th of January (1555). On the 25th a hundred- and sixty 
 priests walked in procession through the London streets, 
 chanting litanies, with eight bishops walking after them, 
 and Bonner carrying the host. On the 28th the cardinal 
 issued his first general instructions. The bishops were di- 
 rected to call together their clergy in every diocese in Eng- 
 land, and to inform them of the benevolent love of the Holy 
 Father, and of the arrival of the legate with powers to ab- 
 solve them from their guilt. They were to relate the acts 
 of the late parliament, with the reconciliation and absolution 
 of the Lords and Commons ; and they were to give general 
 notice that authority had been restored to the ecclesiastical 
 courts to proceed against the enemies of the faith, and punisR 
 them according to law. 
 
 A day was then to be fixed on which the clergy should 
 appear with their confessions, and be received into the 
 Church. In the assignment of their several penances, a dis- 
 tinction was to be made between those who had taught 
 heresy, and those who had merely lapsed into it. 
 
 When the clergy had been reconciled, they were again 
 in turn to exhort the laity in all churches and cathedrals 
 to accept the grace which was offered to them ; and that 
 they might understand that they were not at liberty to refuse 
 the invitation, a time was assigned to them within which 
 their submissions must be all completed. A book was to be 
 kept in every diocese where the names of those who were 
 received were to be entered. A visitation was to be held 
 throughout the country at the end of the spring, and all who 
 had not complied before Easter Day, or who, after compli-
 
 122 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 ance, " had returned to their vomit," would be proceeded 
 against with the utmost severity of the law. 
 
 The introduction of the Register was the Inquisition 
 tinder another name. There was no limit, except in the 
 humanity or the prudence of the bishops, to the tyranny 
 which they would be enabled to exercise. The cardinal 
 professed to desire that, before heretics were punished with 
 death, mild means should first be tried with them; the mean- 
 ing which he attached to the words was illustrated in an 
 instant example. 
 
 The instructions were the signal for the bishops to com- 
 mence business. On the day of their appearance Gardiner, 
 Bonner, Tunstal, and three other prelates, formed a court 
 in St. Mary Overy's Church, in Southwark; and Hooper, 
 and Rogers, a canon of St. Paul's, were brought up before 
 them. 
 
 Rogers had been distinguished in the first bright days of 
 Protestantism. He had been a fellow-laborer with Tyndal 
 and Coverdale, at Antwerp, in the translation of the Bible. 
 Afterwards, taking a German wife, he lived for a time at 
 Wittenberg, not unknown, we may be sure, to Martin Luther. 
 On the accession of Edward, he returned to England, and 
 worked among the London clergy till the end of the reign; 
 and on Mary's accession he was one of the preachers at 
 Paul's Cross who had dared to speak against the reaction. 
 He had been rebuked by the council, and his friends had 
 urged him to fly, but, like Cranmer, he thought that duty re- 
 quired him to stay at his post, and, in due time, without, 
 however, having given fresh provocation, he was shut up in 
 Newgate by Bonner. 
 
 Hooper, when the unfortunate garment controversy was 
 brought to an end, had shown by his conduct in his diocese 
 that in one instance at least doctrinal fanaticism was com- 
 patible with the loftiest excellence. While the great world 
 was scrambling for the church property, Hooper was found 
 petitioning the council for leave to augment impoverished 
 livings out of his own income. In the hall of his palace at 
 Gloucester a profuse hospitality was offered daily to those 
 who were most in need of it. The poor of the city were in- 
 vited by relays to solid meat dinners, and the bishop with the 
 courtesy of a gentleman dined with them, and treated them
 
 THE BLOODY MARY. 123 
 
 with the same respect as if they had been the highest in the 
 land. He was one of the first persons arrested after Mary's 
 accession, and the cross of persecution at once happily made 
 his peace with Ridley. In an affectionate interchange of 
 letters, the two confessors exhorted each other to constancy 
 in the end which both foresaw, determining " if they could 
 not overthrow, at least, to shake those high altitudes " of 
 spiritual tyranny. The Fleet prison had now been Hooper's 
 house for eighteen months. At first, on payment of heavy 
 fees to the warden, he had lived in some degree of comfort; 
 but as soon as his deprivation was declared, Gardiner ordered 
 that he should be confined in one of the common prisoners' 
 wards ; where " with a wicked man and a wicked woman " 
 for his companions, with a bed of straw and a rotten counter- 
 pane, the prison sink on one side of his cell and Fleet ditch 
 on the other, he waited till it would please Parliament to- 
 permit the dignitaries of the Church to murder him. 
 
 These were the two persons with whom the Marian per- 
 secution opened. On their appearance in the court, they 
 were required briefly to make their submission. They at- 
 tempted to argue: but they were told that when Parliament 
 had determined a thing, private men were not to call it in 
 question, and they were allowed twenty-four hours to make 
 up their minds. As they were leaving the church, Hooper 
 was heard to say, " Come, brother Rogers, must we two 
 take this matter first in hand and fry these fagots?" "Yea, 
 sir, with God's grace," Rogers answered. " Doubt not," 
 Hooper said, " but God will give us strength." 
 
 They were remanded to prison. The next morning they 
 were brought again before the court. " The Queen's mercy " 
 was offered them, if they would recant. They refused, and 
 they were sentenced to die. Rogers asked to be allowed to 
 take leave of his wife and children. Gardiner, with a savage 
 taunt, refused. The day of execution was left uncertain. 
 They were sent to Newgate to wait the Queen's pleasure. 
 On the 3Oth, Taylor of Hadley, Laurence Sandars, rector 
 of All Hallows, and the illustrious Bradford, were passed 
 through the same forms with the same results. Another, a 
 notorious preacher, called Cardmaker, flinched, and made his 
 submission. 
 
 Rogers was to " break the ice," as Bradford described it
 
 124 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 On the morning of the 4th of February the wife of the 
 keeper of Newgate came to his bedside. He was sleeping 
 soundly, and she woke him with difficulty to let him know 
 that he was wanted. The Bishop of London was waiting, 
 she said, to degrade him from the priesthood, and he was 
 then to go out and die. Rubbing his eyes, and collecting 
 himself, he hurried on his clothes. " If it be thus," he said, 
 " I need not tie my points." Hooper had been sent for also 
 for the ceremony of degradation. The vestments used in the 
 mass were thrown over them, and were then one by one re- 
 moved. They were pronounced deposed from the priestly 
 office, incapable of offering further sacrifice except, indeed, 
 the only acceptable sacrifice which man can ever offer, the 
 sacrifice of himself. Again Rogers entreated permission to 
 see his wife, and again he was refused. 
 
 The two friends were then parted. Hooper was to suffer 
 at Gloucester, and returned to his cell ; Rogers was com- 
 mitted to the sheriff, and led out to Smithfield. The Catholics 
 had affected to sneer at the faith of their rivals. There was 
 a general conviction among them, which was shared probably 
 by Pole and Gardiner, that the Protestants would all flinch 
 at the last ; that they had no " doctrine that would abide the 
 fire." When Rogers appeared, therefore, the exultation of 
 the people in his constancy overpowered the horror of his 
 fate, and he was received with rounds of cheers. His family, 
 whom he was forbidden to part with in private, were waiting 
 on the way to see him, his wife with nine little ones at her 
 side and a tenth upon her breast, and they, too, welcomed 
 him with hysterical cries of joy, as if he were on his way 
 to a festival. Sir Robert Rochester was in attendance at the 
 stake to report his behavior. At the last moment he was 
 offered pardon if he would give way, but in vain. The fire 
 was lighted. The suffering seemed to be nothing. He bathed 
 his hands in the flame as " if it was cold water," raised his 
 eyes to heaven, and died. 
 
 The same night a party of the royal guard took charge of 
 Hooper, the order of whose execution was arranged by a 
 mandate from the crown. As " an obstinate, false, and de- 
 testible heretic," he was to be burned in the city " which he 
 had infected with his pernicious doctrines ;" and " foras- 
 much as being a vainglorious person, and delighting in his
 
 THE BLOODY MARY. 125 
 
 tongue," he " might persuade the people into agreement with 
 him, had he liberty to use it," care was to be taken that he 
 should not speak either at the stake or on his way to it. He 
 was carried down on horseback by easy stages; and on the 
 forenoon of Thursday, the 7th, he dined at Cirencester, " at 
 a woman's house who had always hated the truth, and spoken 
 all evil she could of him." This woman had shared in the 
 opinion that Protestants had no serious convictions, and had 
 often expressed her belief that Hooper, particularly, would 
 fail if brought to the trial. She found that both in him and 
 in his creed there was more than she had supposed ; and 
 " perceiving the cause of his coming, she lamented his case 
 with tears, and showed him all the friendship she could." 
 
 At five in the evening he arrived at Gloucester. The 
 road, for a mile outside the town, was lined with people, and 
 the mayor was in attendance, with an escort, to prevent a 
 rescue. But the feeling was rather of awe and expectation, 
 and those who loved Hooper best knew that the highest 
 service which he could render to his faith was to die for it. 
 
 A day's interval of preparation was allowed him, with a 
 private room. He was in the custody of the sheriff ; " and 
 there was this difference observed between the keepers of the 
 bishops' prisons and the keepers of the crown prisons, that 
 the bishops' keepers were ever cruel; the keepers of the 
 crown prisons showed, for the most part, such favor as they 
 might." After a sound night's rest, Hooper rose early, and 
 passed the morning in solitary prayer. In the course of the 
 day, young Sir Anthony Kingston, one of the commissioners 
 appointed to superintend the execution, expressed a wish to 
 see him. Kingston was an old acquaintance, Hooper having 
 been the means of bringing him out of evil ways. He entered 
 the room unannounced. Hooper was on his knees, and, look- 
 ing around at the intruder, did not at first know him. 
 Kingston told him his name, and then, bursting into tears, 
 said : 
 
 " Oh, consider ; life is sweet and death is bitter ; there- 
 fore, seeing life may be had, desire to live, for life hereafter 
 may do good." 
 
 Hooper answered: 
 
 " I thank you for your counsel, yet it is not so friendly as 
 I could have wished it to be. True it is, alas ! Master
 
 126 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 Kingston, that death is bitter and life is sweet; therefore I 
 have settled myself, through the strength of God's Holy 
 Spirit, patiently to pass through the fire prepared for me, 
 desiring you and others to commend me to God's mercy in 
 your prayers." 
 
 " Well, my Lord," said Kingston, " then there is no rem- 
 edy, and I will take my leave. I thank God that ever I knew 
 you, for God appointed you to call me, being a lost child. I 
 was both an adulterer and a fornicator, and God, by your 
 good instruction, brought me to the forsaking of the same." 
 
 They parted, the tears on both their faces. Other friends 
 were admitted afterwards. The Queen's orders were little 
 thought of, for Hooper had won the hearts of the guard on 
 his way from London. In the evening the mayor and alder- 
 men came, with the sheriffs, to shake hands with him. " It 
 was a sign of their good will," he said, " and a proof that they 
 had not forgotten the lessons which he used to teach them." 
 He begged the sheriffs that there might be " a quick fire to 
 make an end shortly;" and for himself he would be as 
 obedient as they could wish. 
 
 " If you think I do amiss in anything," he said, " hold 
 tip your fingers, and I have done; for I am not come hither 
 as one enforced or compelled to die; I might have had my 
 life, as is well known, with worldly gain, if I would have 
 accounted my doctrine falsehood and heresy." 
 
 In the evening, at his own request, he was left alone. 
 He slept undisturbed the early part of the night. From the 
 time that he woke till the guard entered, he was on his 
 Icnees. 
 
 The morning was windy and wet. The scene of the exe- 
 cution was an open space opposite the college, near a large 
 elm tree, where Hooper had been accustomed to preach. 
 Several thousand people were collected to see him suffer; 
 some had climbed the tree, and were seated in the storm and 
 rain among the leafless branches. A company of priests were 
 in a room over the college gates, looking out with pity or 
 satisfaction, as God or the devil was in their hearts. 
 
 " Alas ! " said Hooper, when he was brought out, " why 
 be all these people assembled here, and speech is prohibited 
 me ? " He had suffered in prison from sciatica, and was 
 lame, but he limped cheerfully along with a stick, and smiled
 
 THE BLOODY MARY. 127 
 
 when he saw the stake. At the foot of it he knelt; and as 
 he began to pray, a box was brought, and placed on a stool 
 before his eyes, which he was told contained his pardon if 
 he would recant. 
 
 " Away with it ! " Hooper only cried ; " away with it ! " 
 
 " Dispatch him, then," Lord Chandos said, " seeing there 
 is no remedy." 
 
 He was undressed to his shirt, in the cold; a pound of 
 gunpowder was tied between his legs, and as much more 
 under either arm ; he was fastened with an iron hoop to the 
 stake, and he assisted with his own hands to arrange the 
 fagots round him. 
 
 The fire was then brought, but the wood was green; the 
 dry straw only kindled, and burning for a few moments was 
 blown away by the wind. A violent flame paralyzed the 
 nerves at once, a slow one was torture. More fagots were 
 thrown in, and again lighted, and this time the martyr's face 
 was singed and scorched ; but again the flames sank, and 
 the hot damp sticks smoldered round his legs. He wiped his 
 eyes with his hands, and cried, " For God's love, good people, 
 let me have more fire ! " A third supply of dry fuel was laid 
 about him, and this time the powder exploded, but it had 
 been ill-placed, or was not enough. " Lord Jesu, have mercy 
 on me!" he exclaimed; "Lord Jesu, receive my spirit!" 
 These were his last articulate words; but his lips were long 
 seen to move, and he continued to beat his breast with his 
 hands. It was not till after three quarters of an hour of 
 torment that he at last expired. 
 
 The same day, at the same hour, Rowland Taylor was 
 burned on Aldham Common, in Suffolk. Laurence Sandars 
 had been destroyed the day before at Coventry, kissing the 
 stake, and crying " Welcome, the cross of Christ ! Welcome, 
 everlasting life ! " The first-fruits of the Whitehall pageant 
 were gathered. By the side of the rhetoric of the hysterical 
 dreamer who presided in that vain melodrama, let me place 
 a few words addressed by the murdered Bishop of Gloucester 
 to his friends, a week before his sentence. 
 
 " The grace of God be with you, Amen. I did write unto 
 you of late, and told you what extremity the Parliament had 
 concluded upon concerning religion, suppressing the truth, 
 and setting forth the untruth, intending to cause all men, by
 
 128 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 extremity to forswear themselves, and to take again for the 
 head of the Church him that is neither head nor member of 
 it, but a very enemy, as the Word of God and all ancient 
 writers do record. And for lack of law and authority they 
 will use force and extremity, which have been the arguments 
 to defend the Pope and Popery since their authority first 
 began in the world. But now is the time of trial, to see 
 whether we fear more God or man. It was an easy thing to 
 hold with Christ whilst the prince and the world held with 
 Him; but now the world hateth Him, it is the true trial who 
 be His. 
 
 " Wherefore in the name, and in the virtue, strength, and 
 power of His Holy Spirit, prepare yourselves in any case to 
 adversity and constancy. Let us not run away when it is 
 most time to fight. Remember, none shall be crowned but 
 such as fight manfully ; and he that endureth to the end shall 
 be saved. Ye must now turn your cogitations from the 
 perils you see, and mark the felicity that followeth the 
 peril either victory in this world of your enemies, or else 
 a surrender of this life to inherit the everlasting kingdom. 
 Beware of beholding too much the felicity or misery of this 
 world; for the consideration and too earnest love or fear of 
 either of them draweth from God. Wherefore think with 
 yourselves as touching the felicity of the world, it is good; 
 but none otherwise than it standeth with the favor of God; 
 it is to be kept, but yet so far forth as by keeping it we lose 
 not God. It is good abiding and tarrying still among our 
 friends here, but yet so that we tarry not therewithal 
 in God's displeasure, and hereafter dwell with the devils in 
 fire everlasting. There is nothing under God but may be 
 kept, so that God, being above all things we have, be not lost. 
 Of adversity judge the same. Imprisonment is painful, but 
 yet liberty upon evil conditions is more painful. The prisons 
 stink, but yet not so much as sweet houses, where the fear and 
 true honor of God lack. I must be alone and solitary; it is 
 better so to be, and have God with me, than to be in company 
 with the wicked. Loss of goods is great, but loss of God's 
 grace and favor is greater. I am a poor simple creature, 
 and cannot tell how to answer before such a great sort of 
 noble, learned, and wise men. It is better to make answer 
 before the pomp and pride of wicked men than to stand
 
 THE BLOODY MARY. 129 
 
 naked, in the sight of all heaven and earth, before the just 
 God at the latter day. I shall die by the hands of the cruel 
 men; but he is blessed that loseth this life full of miseries, 
 and findeth the life of eternal joys. It is pain and grief to 
 depart from goods and friends; but yet not so much as to 
 depart from grace and heaven itself. Wherefore there is 
 neither felicity nor adversity of this world that can appear 
 to be great if it be weighed with the joys or pains in the 
 world to come." 
 
 Of five who had been sentenced, four were thus dis- 
 patched. Bradford, the fifth, was respited, in the hope that 
 the example might tell upon him. Six more were waiting 
 their condemnation in Bonner's prisons. The enemies of 
 the Church were to submit or die. So said Gardiner, in 
 the name of the English priesthood, with the passion of a 
 fierce revenge. So said the legate and the Queen, in the 
 delirious belief that they were chosen instruments of Provi- 
 dence. 
 
 So, however, did not say the English lay statesmen. The 
 first and unexpected effect was to produce a difference of 
 opinion in the court itself. Philip, to whom Renard had in- 
 sisted on the necessity of more moderate measures, found it 
 necessary to clear himself of responsibility: and the day 
 after Hooper suffered, Alphonso a Castro, the King's 
 chaplain, preached a sermon in the royal presence, in which 
 he denounced the execution, and inveighed against the 
 tyranny of the bishops. The Lords of the Council " talked 
 strangely;" and so deep was the indignation that the Flemish 
 ambassador again expected Gardiner's destruction. Paget 
 refused to act with him in the council any more, and Philip 
 himself talked more and more of going abroad. Renard, 
 from the tone of his correspondence, believed evidently at 
 this moment that the game of the Church was played out 
 and lost. He wrote to the Emperor to entreat that when the 
 King went he might not himself be left behind : he was held 
 responsible by the people for the Queen's misdoings; and a 
 party of the young nobility had sworn to kill him. 
 
 Among the people the constancy of the martyrs had called 
 out a burst of admiration. It was rumored that bystanders 
 had endeavored to throw themselves into the fire to die at 
 their side. A prisoner, on examination before Bonner, was
 
 130 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 asked if he thought he could bear the flame. You may try 
 me, if you will, he said. A candle was brought, and he held 
 his hand, without flinching, in the blaze. With such a 
 humor abroad, it seemed to Renard that the Lords had only 
 to give the signal, and the Queen and the bishops would 
 be overwhelmed. 
 
 He expected the movement in the spring. It is singular 
 that precisely as in the preceding winter, the deliberate in- 
 tentions of moderate and competent persons were anticipated 
 and defeated by a partial and premature conspiracy. At the 
 end of February a confederate revealed a project for an in- 
 surrection, partly religious and partly agrarian. Placards 
 were to be issued simultaneously in all parts of the country, 
 declaring that the Queen's pregnancy was a delusion, and 
 that she intended to pass upon the nation a supposititious 
 child; the people were, therefore, invited to rise in arms, 
 drive out the Spaniards, revolutionize religion, tear down 
 the enclosures of the commons, and proclaim Courtenay king 
 under the title of Edward VII. In such a scheme the lords 
 and country gentlemen could bear no part. They could not 
 risk a repetition of the popular rebellions of the late reign, 
 and they resolved to wait the issue of the Queen's pregnancy, 
 while they watched over the safety of Elizabeth. The project 
 of the court was now to send her to Flanders, where she was 
 to remain under charge of the Emperor ; if possible, she was 
 to be persuaded to go thither of her own accord ; if she could 
 not be persuaded, she would be otherwise removed. Lord 
 William Howard, her constant guardian, requested permis- 
 sion to see and speak with her, and learn her own feelings. 
 He was refused; but he went to her notwithstanding, and 
 had a long private interview with her; and the court could 
 only talk bitterly of his treason among themselves, make 
 propositions to send him to the Tower which they durst not 
 execute, and devise some other method of dealing with their 
 difficulty. 
 
 Meantime, Philip, who had pined for freedom after six 
 weeks' experience of his bride, was becoming unmanageably 
 impatient. A paper of advice and exhortation survives, 
 which was addressed on this occasion by the ambassador to 
 his master, with reflections on the condition of England, and 
 on the conduct which the king should pursue.
 
 THE BLOODY MARY. 131 
 
 " Your Majesty must remember," said Renard, " the pur- 
 pose for which you came to England. The French had se- 
 cured the Queen of Scotland for the Dauphin. They had 
 afterwards made an alliance with the late King, and spared 
 no pains to secure the support of England. To counteract 
 their schemes, and to obtain a counteradvantage in the war, 
 the Emperor, on the accession of the Queen, resolved that 
 your Highness should marry her. Your Highness, it is 
 true, might wish that she was more agreeable; but, on the 
 other hand, she is infinitely virtuous, and, things being as 
 they are, your Highness, like a magnanimous prince, must re- 
 member her condition, and exert yourself, so far as you con- 
 veniently may, to assist her in the management of the 
 kingdom. 
 
 " Your Highness must consider that your departure will 
 be misrepresented, your enemies will speak of it as a flight 
 rather than as a necessary absence. The French will be 
 busy with their intrigues, and the Queen will not be pleased 
 to lose you. The administration is in confusion, the divisions 
 in the council are more violent than ever. Religion is un- 
 settled ; the heretics take advantage of these late barbarous 
 punishments to say that they are to be converted by fire, be- 
 cause their enemies are unable to convince them by reason 
 or example. The orthodox clergy are still unreformed, and 
 their scandalous conduct accords ill with the offices to which 
 they are called. 
 
 " Further, your Highness will do well to weigh the un- 
 certainty of the succession. Should the Queen's pregnancy 
 prove a mistake, the heretics will place their hopes in Eliza- 
 beth : and here you are in a difficulty whatever be done ; for 
 if Elizabeth be set aside, the crown will go to the Queen of 
 Scots; if she succeed, she will restore heresy, and naturally 
 attach herself to France. Some step must be taken about 
 this before you leave the country; and you must satisfy the 
 Queen that you will assist her in her general difficulties, as a 
 good lord and husband ought to do. 
 
 " The council must be reformed, if possible, and tke num- 
 ber diminished ; those who remain must be invited to renew 
 their oaths to your Majesty. Regard must be had to the 
 navy, and especially to the admiral Lord William Howard; 
 and above all there must be no more of this barbarous pre-
 
 132 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 cipitancy in putting heretics to death. The people must be 
 won from their errors by gentleness and by better instruc- 
 tion. Except in cases of especial scandal, the bishops must 
 not be permitted to irritate them by cruelty, and the legate 
 must see that a better example is set by the clergy them- 
 selves. The debts of the crown must be attended to; and 
 your Majesty should endeavor to do something which will 
 give you popularity with the masses. Before all things, at- 
 tend to the succession. 
 
 " You cannot set aside the dispositions of King Henry 
 in favor of Elizabeth without danger of rebellion. To recog- 
 nize her as heir presumptive without providing her with a 
 husband, who can control her, will be perilous to the Queen. 
 The mean course between the extremes will be, therefore, for 
 your Highness to bring about her marriage with the Prince 
 of Savoy. It will please the English, provided that her 
 rights of inheritance are not interfered with ; and although 
 they will not go to war for our quarrel, they will not in that 
 case be unwilling to assist in expelling the French from 
 Piedmont. 
 
 " If your Majesty approve, the thing can be done without 
 delay. At all events, before you leave the country, you 
 should see the Princess yourself; give her your advice to be 
 faithful to her sister, and, on your part, promise that you 
 will be her friend, and assist her where you can find 
 opportunity." 
 
 THE MARTYRS. 
 
 The protests of Renard against the persecution received 
 no attention. 
 
 The inquisition established by the legate was not to com- 
 mence till Easter; but the prisons were already abundantly 
 supplied with persons who had been arrested on various 
 pretexts, and the material was ready in hand to occupy the 
 interval. The four persons who had first suffered had been 
 conspicuous among the leaders of the Reformation ; but the 
 bishops were for the most part prudent in their selection 
 of victims, and chose them principally from among the poor 
 and unfriended. 
 
 On the Qth of February, a weaver named Tomkins (the 
 man who had held his hand in the candle), Pigot, a butcher,
 
 THE BLOODY MARY. 133 
 
 Knight, a barber, Hunter, an apprentice boy of 19, Lawrence, 
 a priest, and Hawkes, a gentleman, were brought before 
 Bonner in the Consistory at St. Paul's, where they were 
 charged with denying transubstantiation, and were con- 
 demned to die. The indignation which had been excited by 
 the first executions caused a delay in carrying th'e sentence 
 into effect; but as the menace of insurrection died away, 
 the wolves came back to their prey. On the Qth of March, 
 two more were condemned also, Thomas Causton and 
 Thomas Higbed, men of some small property in Essex. To 
 disperse the effect, these eight were scattered about the 
 diocese. Tomkins died at Smithfield on the i6th of March; 
 Causton and Higbed, Pigot and Knight, in different parts of 
 Essex; Hawkes suffered later; Lawrence was burned at 
 Colchester. The legs of the latter had been crushed by irons 
 in one of Bonner's prisons ; he was unable to stand, and was 
 placed at the stake in a chair. " At his burning, he sitting 
 in the fire, the young children came about and cried, as well 
 as young children could speak, Lord, strengthen Thy serv- 
 ant, and keep Thy promise Lord, strengthen Thy servant, 
 and keep Thy promise." 
 
 Hunter's case deserves more particular mention. The 
 London apprentices had been affected deeply by the Reform- 
 ing preachers. It was to them that the servant of Anne 
 Askew " made her moan," and gathered subscriptions for 
 her mistress. William Hunter, who was one of them, had 
 been ordered to attend mass by a priest when it was re- 
 established; he had refused, and his master, fearing that 
 he might be brought into trouble, had sent him home to 
 his family at Brentwood, in Essex. Another priest, going 
 one day into Brentwood Church, found Hunter reading the 
 Bible there. 
 
 Could he expound Scripture that he read it thus to him- 
 self? the priest asked. He was reading for his comfort, 
 Hunter replied; he did not take on himself to expound. 
 The Bible taught him how to live, and how to distinguish 
 between right and wrong. 
 
 It was never merry world, the priest said, since the Bible 
 came forth in English. He saw what Hunter was he was 
 one of those who disliked the Queen's laws, and he and 
 other heretics would broil for it before all was over.
 
 134 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 The boy's friends thought it prudent that he should fly 
 to some place where he was not known ; but as soon as he 
 was gone, a Catholic magistrate in the neighborhood re- 
 quired his father to produce him, on peril of being arrested 
 in his place; and after a struggle of affection, in which the 
 father offered to shield his son at his own hazard, young 
 Hunter returned and surrendered. 
 
 The magistrates sent him to the Bishop of London, who 
 kept him in prison three-quarters of a year. When the 
 persecution commenced, he was called up for examination. 
 
 Bonner, though a bigot and a ruffian, had, at times, a 
 coarse good-nature in him, and often, in moments of pity, 
 thrust an easy recantation upon a hesitating prisoner. He 
 tried with emphatic anxiety to save this young apprentice. 
 " If thou wilt recant," he said to him, " I will make thee a 
 freeman in the city, and give thee forty pounds in money to 
 set up thy occupation withal; or I will make thee steward 
 of mine house, and set thee in office, for I like thee well." 
 
 Hunter thanked him for his kindness; but it could not 
 be, he said; he must stand to the truth: he could not lie, or 
 pretend to believe what he did not believe. Bonner said, and 
 probably with sincere conviction, that if he persisted, he 
 would be damned forever. Hunter said that God judged 
 more righteously, and justified those whom man unjustly 
 condemned. 
 
 He was therefore to die with the rest; and on Saturday, 
 the 23d of March, he was sent to suffer at his native village. 
 Monday being the feast of the Annunciation, the execution 
 was postponed till Tuesday. The intervening time he was 
 allowed to spend with his friends " in the parlor of the Swan 
 Inn." His father prayed that he might continue to the end 
 in the way that he had begun. His mother said, she was 
 happy to bear a child who could find in his heart to lose his 
 life for Christ's sake. " Mother," he answered, " for my 
 little pain which I shall suffer, which is but a short braid, 
 Christ hath promised me a crown of joy. May you not be 
 glad of that, Mother?" 
 
 Amidst such words the days passed. Tuesday morning 
 the sheriff's son came and embraced him, " bade him not be 
 afraid," and " could speak no more for weeping." When the 
 sheriff came himself for him, he took his brother's arm and
 
 THE BLOODY MARY. 135 
 
 walked calmly to the place of execution, " at the town's end, 
 where the butts stood." 
 
 His father was at the roadside as he passed. " God be 
 with thee, son William ! " the old man said. " God be with 
 thee, good Father," the son answered, " and be of good 
 comfort ! " 
 
 When he was come to the stake, he took one of the fagots, 
 knelt upon it, and prayed for a few moments. The sheriff 
 read the pardon with the conditions. " I shall not recant," 
 he said, and walked to the post, to which he was chained. 
 
 " Pray for me, good people, while you see me alive," he 
 said to the crowd. 
 
 " Pray for thee ! " said the magistrate who had com- 
 mitted him, " I will no more pray for thee than I will pray 
 for a dog." 
 
 " Son of God," Hunter exclaimed, " shine on me ! " The 
 sun broke out from behind a cloud and blazed in glory on his 
 face. 
 
 The fagots were set on fire. 
 
 " Look," shrieked a priest, " how thou burnest here, so 
 shalt thou burn in hell ! " 
 
 The martyr had a prayer-book in his hands, which he cast 
 through the flames to his brother. 
 
 " William," said the brother, " think on the holy passion of 
 Christ, and be not afraid of death." 
 
 " I am not afraid," were his last words. " Lord, Lord, 
 Lord, receive my spirit ! " 
 
 Ten days later another victim was sacrificed at Carmar- 
 then, whose fate was peculiarly unprovoked and cruel. 
 
 Robert Ferrars, who twenty-seven years before carried a 
 fagot with Anthony Dalaber in High street at Oxford, had 
 been appointed by Somerset Bishop of St. David's. He 
 was a man of large humanity, justice, and uprightness 
 neither conspicuous as a theologian nor prominent as a 
 preacher, but remarkable chiefly for good sense and a kindly 
 imaginative tenderness. He had found his diocese infected 
 with the general disorders of the times. The Chapter were 
 indulging themselves to the utmost in questionable pleasures ; 
 the church patronage was made the prey of a nest of cathe- 
 dral lawyers; and, in an evil hour for himself, the bishop 
 endeavored to make crooked things straight.
 
 136 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 After three years of struggle, his unruly canons were 
 unable to endure him longer, and forwarded to the Duke of 
 Northumberland an elaborate series of complaints against 
 him. He was charged with neglecting his books and his 
 preaching, and spending his time in surveying the lands of 
 the see, and opening mines. He kept no manner of hospi- 
 tality, it was said, but dined at the same table with his 
 servants ; and his talk was, " not of godliness, but of worldly 
 matters, as baking, brewing, enclosing, ploughing, mining, 
 millstones, discharging of tenants, and such like." 
 
 " To declare his folly in riding (these are the literal 
 words of the accusation), he useth a bridle with white studs 
 and snaffle, with Scottish stirrups, white spurs; a Scottish 
 pad, with a little staff of three quarters [of a yard] long. 
 
 " He said he would go to Parliament on foot ; and to 
 his friends that dissuaded him, alleging that it was not meet 
 for a man in his place, he answered, I care not for that; 
 it is no sin. 
 
 " Having a son, he went before the midwife to the church, 
 presenting the child to the priest; and giving the name 
 Samuel with a solemn interpretation of the name, appointed 
 two godfathers and two godmothers contrary to the ordinance, 
 making his son a monster and himself a laughing-stock. 
 
 " He daily useth whistling of his child, and saith that he 
 understood his whistle when he was but three years old; and 
 being advertised of his friends that men laughed at his 
 folly, he answered, They whistle their horses and dogs: 
 they might also be contented that I whistle my child; and so 
 whistleth him daily, friendly admonition neglected. 
 
 " In his visitation, among other his surveys, he surveyed 
 Milford Haven, where he espied a seal-fish tumbling, and he 
 crept, down to the rocks by the waterside, and continued there 
 whistling by the space of an hour, persuading the company 
 that laughed fast at him, he made the fish to tarry there. 
 
 " Speaking of the scarcity of herrings, he laid the fault 
 to the covetousness of fishers, who in time of plenty took so 
 many that they destroyed the breeders. 
 
 " Speaking of the alteration of the coin, he wished that 
 what metal soever it was made of, the penny should be in 
 weight worth a penny of the same metal." 
 
 Such were the charges against Ferrars, which, notwith-
 
 THE BLOODY MARY. 137 
 
 standing, were considered serious enough to require an an- 
 swer; and the bishop consented to reply. 
 
 He dined with his servants, he said, because the hall of 
 the palace was in ruins, and for their comfort he allowed 
 them to eat in his own room. For his hospitality, he appealed 
 to his neighbors ; and for his conversation, he said that he 
 suited it to his hearers. He talked of religion to religious 
 men ; to men of the world he talked " of honest worldly things 
 with godly intent." He saw no folly in having his horse 
 decently appointed; and as to walking to Parliament, it was 
 indifferent to him whether he walked or rode. God had 
 given him a child, after lawful prayer, begotten in honest 
 marriage; he had therefore named him Samuel and presented 
 him to the minister as a poor member of Christ's Church; 
 it was done openly in the cathedral, without offending any 
 one. The crime of whistling he admitted, " thinking it better 
 to bring up his son with loving entertainment," to encourage 
 him to receive afterwards more serious lessons. He had 
 whistled to the seal : and " such as meant folly might turn it 
 to their purpose." He had said that the destruction of the 
 fry of fish prevented fish from multiplying, because he be- 
 lieved it to be true. 
 
 Answered or unanswered, it is scarcely credible that such 
 accusations should have received attention ; but the real 
 offense lay behind, and is indicated in a vague statement that 
 he had exposed himself to a premunire. The exquisite iniq- 
 uity of the Northumberland administration could not endure 
 a bishop who had opposed the corrupt administration of 
 patronage; and the explanation being held as insufficient, 
 Ferrars was summoned to London and thrown into prison, 
 where Mary's accession found him. 
 
 Cut off in this way from the opportunities of escape which 
 were so long open to others, the bishop remained in confine- 
 ment till the opening of the persecution. He was deposed 
 from his see by Gardiner's first commission, as having been 
 married; otherwise, however, Ferrars was unobnoxious po- 
 litically and personally. Being rn prison, he had been in- 
 capable of committing any fresh offense against the Queen, 
 and might reasonably have been forgotten or passed over. 
 But he had been a bishop, and he was ready caught to the 
 hands of the authorities; and Mary had been compelled un-
 
 138 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 willingly to release a more conspicuous offender, Miles Cov- 
 erdale, at the intercession of the King of Denmark. Ferrars 
 was therefore brought before Gardiner on the 4th of Feb- 
 ruary. On the I4th he was sent into Wales to be tried by 
 Morgan, his successor at St. David's, and Constantine, the 
 notary of the diocese, who had been one of his accusers. By 
 these judges, on the nth of March, he was condemned and 
 degraded ; he appealed to the legate, but the legate never 
 listened to the prayer of heretics; the legate's mission was 
 to extirpate them. On Saturday, the 3Oth of March, Fer- 
 rars was brought to the stake in the market-place in Car- 
 marthen. 
 
 Rawlins White, an aged Cardiff fisherman, followed Fer- 
 rars. In the course of April, George Marsh, a curate, was 
 burned at Chester ; and on the 2oth of April, a man named 
 William Flower, who had been once a monk of Ely, was 
 burned in Palace-yard, at Westminster. Flower had pro- 
 voked his own fate. He appeared on Easter Day in St. 
 Margaret's Church while mass was being said; and insti- 
 gated, as he persuaded himself, by the Holy Spirit, he flew 
 upon the officiating priest, and stabbed him with a dagger in 
 the hand, when, to the horror of pious Catholics, the blood 
 spurted in the chalice, and was mixed with the consecrated 
 elements. 
 
 Sixteen persons had now been put to death, and there 
 was again a pause for the sharp surgery to produce its 
 effects. 
 
 While Mary was destroying the enemies of the Church, 
 Julius III had died at the end of March, and Reginald Pole 
 was again a candidate for the vacant chair. The courts of 
 Paris and Brussels alike promised him their support, but 
 alike gave their support to another. They flattered his vir- 
 tues, but they permitted Marcellus Cervino, the Cardinal of 
 St. Cross, to be elected unanimously; and the English legate 
 was told that he must be contented with the event which 
 God had been pleased to send. An opportunity, however, 
 seemed to offer itself to him of accomplishing a service to 
 Europe. 
 
 For thirty-five years the two great Catholic powers had 
 been wrestling with but brief interruption. The advantage 
 to either had been as trifling as the causes of their quarrel
 
 THE BLOODY MARY. 139 
 
 were insignificant. Their revenues were anticipated, their 
 credit was exhausted, yet year after year languid armies 
 struggled into collision. Across the Alps in Italy, and along 
 the frontiers of Burgundy and the Low Countries, towns and 
 villages and homesteads were annually sacked, and peasants 
 and their families destroyed for what it were vain to ask, 
 except it was for some poor shadow of imagined honor. 
 Two mighty princes believed themselves justified in the sight 
 of Heaven in squandering their subjects' treasure and their 
 subjects' blood, because the pride of each forbade him to be 
 the first in volunteering insignificant concessions. France 
 had conquered Savoy and part of Piedmont, and had pushed 
 forward its northern frontier to Marienbourg and Metz; the 
 Emperor held Lombardy, Parma, and Naples, and Navarre 
 was annexed to Spain. The quarrel might have easily been 
 ended by mutual restitution; yet the Peace of Cambray, the 
 Treaty of Nice, and the Peace of Crepy lasted only while 
 the combatants were taking breath ; and those who would at- 
 tribute the extravagances of human folly to supernatural 
 influence might imagine that the great discord between the 
 orthodox powers had been permitted to give time for the 
 Reformation to strike its roots into the soil of Europe. But 
 a war which could be carried on only by loans at sixteen per 
 cent: was necessarily near its conclusion. The apparent re- 
 covery of England to the Church revived hopes which the 
 Peace of Passau and the dissolution of the Council of Trent 
 had almost extinguished ; and could a reconciliation be ef- 
 fected at last, and could Philip obtain the disposal of the 
 military strength of England in the interests of the papacy, 
 it might not even yet be too late to lay the yoke of orthodoxy 
 on the Germans, and, in a Catholic interpretation of the Par- 
 able of the Supper, " compel them to come in." 
 
 Mary, who had heard herself compared to the Virgin, 
 and Pole, who imagined the Prince of Spain to be the coun- 
 terpart of the Redeemer of mankind, indulged their fancy in 
 large expectations. Philip was the Solomon who was to- 
 raise up the temple of the Lord, which the Emperor, who 
 was a man of war, had not been allowed to build ; and Francis, 
 at the same time, was not unwilling to listen to proposals. 
 The birth of Mary's child was expected in a few weeks, when 
 England would, as a matter of course, become more de-
 
 140 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 cisively Imperialist; and Henry, whose invasion of the Neth- 
 erlands had failed in the previous summer, was ready now to 
 close the struggle while it could be ended on equal and hon- 
 orable terms. 
 
 A conference was, therefore, agreed upon, in which Eng- 
 land was to mediate. A village in the Calais Pale was se- 
 lected as the place of assembly, and Pole, Gardiner, Paget, 
 and Pembroke were chosen to arrange the terms of a general 
 peace, with the Bishop of Arras, the Cardinal of Lorraine, 
 and Montmorency. The time pitched upon was that at which, 
 so near as the Queen could judge, she would herself bring 
 into the world the offspring which was to be the hope of 
 England and mankind; and the great event should, if pos- 
 sible, precede the first meeting of the plenipotentiaries. 
 
 The Queen herself commenced her preparations with in- 
 finite earnestness, and, as a preliminary votive offering, she 
 resolved to give back to the Church such of the abbey prop- 
 erty as remained in the hands of the crown. Her debts were 
 now as high as ever. The Flanders correspondence was re- 
 peating the heavy story of loans and bills. Promises to pay 
 were falling due, and there were no resources to meet them, 
 and the Israelite leeches were again fastened on the common- 
 wealth. Nevertheless, the sacrifice should be made; the more 
 difficult it was, the more favorable it would be received; and 
 on the 28th of March, she sent for the Lord Treasurer, and 
 announced her intention. " If he told her that her estate 
 would not bear it, she must reply," she said, " that she valued 
 the salvation of her soul beyond all earthly things." As soon 
 as Parliament could meet and give its sanction, she wouH 
 restore the first-fruits also to the Holy See. She must work 
 for God as God had worked for her. 
 
 About the 2oth of April, she withdrew to Hampton Court 
 for entire quiet. The rockers and the nurses were in read- 
 iness, and a cradle stood open to receive the royal infant; 
 priests and bishops sang litanies through the London streets ; 
 a procession of ecclesiastics in cloth of gold and tissue 
 marched round Hampton Court Palace headed by Philip in 
 person; Gardiner walked at his side, while Mary gazed from 
 a window. Not only was the child assuredly coming, but its 
 sex was decided on, and circulars were drawn and signed 
 both by the King and Queen, with blanks only for the month
 
 THE BLOODY MARY. 141 
 
 and day, announcing to ministers of state, to ambassadors, 
 and to foreign sovereigns the birth of a prince. 
 
 On the 3Oth, the happy moment was supposed to have 
 arrived; a message was sent off to London announcing the 
 commencement of the pains. The bells were set ringing in 
 all the churches; Te Deum was sung in St. Paul's; priests 
 wrote sermons; bonfires were piled ready for lighting, and 
 tables were laid out in the streets. The news crossed the 
 Channel to Antwerp, and had grown in transit. The great 
 bell of the cathedral was rung for the actual birth. The 
 vessels in the river fired salutes. " The regent sent the 
 English mariners a hundred crowns to drink," and, " they 
 made themselves in readiness to show some worthy triumph 
 upon the waters." 
 
 But the pains passed off without result; and whispers 
 began to be heard that there was, perhaps, a mistake of a 
 more considerable kind. Mary, however, had herself no 
 sort of misgiving. She assured her attendants that all was 
 well, and that she felt the motion of her child. The physi- 
 cians professed to be satisfied, and the priests were kept at 
 work at the litanies. Up and down the streets they 
 inarched, through City and suburb, park and square; torches 
 flared along Cheapside at midnight behind the Holy Sacra- 
 ment, and five hundred poor men and women from the alms- 
 houses walked two and two, telling their beads in their 
 withered fingers. Then all the boys of all the schools were set 
 in motion, and the ushers and the masters came after them; 
 clerks, canons, bishops, mayor, aldermen, officers of guilds. 
 Such marching, such chanting, such praying was never seen 
 or heard before or since in London streets. A profane persorf 
 ran one day out of the crowd, and hung about a priest's neck, 
 where the beads should be, a string of puddings; but they 
 whipped him and prayed on. Surely, God would hear the cry 
 of His people. 
 
 In the midst of the suspense the papal chair fell vacant 
 again. The Pontificate of Marcellus lasted three weeks, and 
 Pole a third time offered himself to the suffrages of the cardi- 
 nals. The courts were profuse of compliments as before. 
 Noailles presented him with a note from Montmorency, con- 
 taining assurances of the infinite desire of the King of France
 
 142 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 for the success of so holy a person. Philip wrote to Rome in 
 his behalf, and Mary condescended to ask for the support of 
 the French cardinals. But the fair speeches, as before, were 
 tut trifling. The choice fell on Pole's personal enemy, Car- 
 dinal Caraffa, who was French alike in heart and brain. 
 
 The choice of a Pope, however, would signify little, if 
 only the child could be born ; but where was the child ? The 
 Queen put it off strangely. The conference could be de- 
 layed no longer. It opened without the intended make- 
 weight, and the Court of France was less inclined to make 
 concessions for a peace. The delay began to tell on the 
 Bourse at Antwerp. The Fuggers and the Schertzes drew 
 their purse-strings, and made difficulties in lending more 
 money to the Emperor. The plenipotentiaries had to sepa- 
 rate after a few meetings, having effected nothing, to the 
 especial mortification of Philip and Mary, who looked to 
 the pacification to enable them to cure England of its unruly 
 humors. The Duke of Alva (so rumor insisted) was to 
 t>ring across the Spanish troops which were in the Low 
 Countries, take possession of London, and force the Parlia- 
 ment into submission. The English were to be punished for 
 the infinite insolences in which they had indulged towards 
 Philip's retinue, by being compelled, whether they liked 
 it or not, to bestow upon him the crown. 
 
 But the peace could not be, nor could the child be born; 
 and the impression grew daily that the Queen had not been 
 pregnant at all. Mary herself, who had been borne for- 
 ward to this, the crisis of her fortunes, on a tide of success, 
 now suddenly found her exulting hopes closing over. From 
 confidence she fell into anxiety, from anxiety into fear, 
 from fear into wilderness and deepondency. She vowed 
 that with the restoration of the estates, she would rebuild 
 the abbeys at her own cost. In vain. Her women now 
 understood her condition; she was sick of a mortal disease; 
 but they durst not tell her; and she whose career had been 
 painted out to her by the legate as especial and supernatural, 
 looked only for supernatural causes of her present state. 
 Throughout May she remained in her apartments waiting 
 waiting in passionate restlessness. With stomach swollen, 
 and features shrunk and haggard, she would sit upon the 
 floor, with her knees drawn up to her face, in an agony of
 
 THE BLOODY MARY. 143 
 
 doubt; and in mockery of her wretchedness letters were 
 again strewed about the place by an invisible agency telling 
 her that she was loathed by her people. She imagined they 
 would rise again in her defense. But if they rose again, it 
 would be to drive her and her husband from the country. 
 
 After the mysterious quickening on the legate's saluta- 
 tion, she could not doubt that her hopes had been at one 
 time well founded; but for some fault, some error in herself, 
 God had delayed the fulfillment of His promise. And what 
 could that crime be? The accursed thing was still in the 
 realm. She had been raised up, like the judges in Israel, for 
 the extermination of God's enemies; and she had smitten 
 but a few here and there, when, like the evil spirits, their 
 name was legion. She had before sent orders round among 
 the magistrates to have their eyes upon them. On the 24th 
 of May, when her distraction was at its height, she wrote 
 a circular to quicken the over-languid zeal of the bishops. 
 
 " Right Reverend Father in God," it ran, " We greet you 
 well; and where of late we addressed our letters unto the 
 justices of the peace, within every of the counties within 
 this our realm, whereby, amongst other good instructions 
 given therein for the good order of the country about, they 
 are willed to have special regard to such disordered persons 
 as, forgetting their duty to Almighty God and us, do lean 
 to any erroneous and heretical opinions ; whom, if they can- 
 not, by good admonition and fair means reform, they are 
 willed to deliver unto the ordinary, to be by him charitably 
 traveled withal, and removed, if it may be, from their 
 naughty opinions; or else, if they continue obstinate, to be 
 ordered according to the laws provided in that behalf: un- 
 derstanding now, to our no little marvel, that divers of the 
 said misordered persons, being, by the justices of the peace, 
 for their contempt and obstinacy, brought to the ordinary, 
 to be used as is aforesaid, are either refused to be received 
 at their hands, or if they be received, are neither so trav- 
 eled with as Christian charity requireth, nor yet proceeded 
 withal according to the order of justice, but are suffered 
 to continue in their errors, to the dishonor of Almighty 
 God, and dangerous example of others; like as we find this 
 matter very strange, so have we thought convenient both 
 to signify this our knowledge, and therewithal also to
 
 144 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. , 
 
 admonish you to have in this behalf such regard henceforth 
 unto the office of a good pastor and bishop, as where any 
 such offender shall be, by the said justices of the peace, 
 brought unto you, ye do use your good wisdom and discre- 
 tion in procuring to remove them from their errors if it 
 may be, or else in proceeding against them, if they continue 
 obstinate, according to the order of the laws, so as, through 
 your good furtherance, both God's glory may be the better 
 advanced, and the commonwealth more quietly governed." 
 
 Under the fresh impulse of this letter, fifty persons 
 were put to death at the stake in the three ensuing months, 
 in the diocese of London, under Bonner ; in the diocese 
 of Rochester, under Maurice Griffin; in the diocese of Can- 
 terbury, where Pole, the archbishop designate, so soon as 
 Cranmer should be dispatched, governed through Harps- 
 feld, the archdeacon, and Thornton, the suffragan bishop of 
 Dover. Of these sacrifices, which were distinguished, all 
 of them, by a uniformity of quiet heroism in the sufferers, 
 that of Cardmaker, prebendary of Wells, calls most for 
 notice. 
 
 The people, whom the cruelty of the Catholic party was 
 reconverting to the Reformation with a rapidity like that 
 produced by the gift of tongues on the day of Pentecost, 
 looked on the martyrs as soldiers are looked at who are called 
 to accomplish, with the sacrifice of their lives, some great 
 service for their country. Cardmaker, on his first exami- 
 nation, had turned his back and flinched. But the conscious- 
 ness of shame and the example of others gave him back 
 his courage ; he was called up again under the Queen's 
 mandate, condemned, and brought out on the 3Oth of May, 
 to suffer at Smithfield, with an upholsterer named Warne. 
 The sheriffs produced the pardons. Warne, without looking 
 at them, undressed at once, and went to the stake; Card- 
 maker " remained long talking ;" " the people in a mar- 
 velous dump of sadness, thinking he would recant." He 
 turned away at last, and knelt, and prayed; but he had still 
 his clothes on ; " there was no semblance of burning ;" and 
 the crowd continued nervously agitated till he rose and threw 
 off his cloak. " Then, seeing this, contrary to their fearful 
 expectations, as men delivered out of great doubt, they cried 
 out for joy, with so great a shout as hath not been lightly
 
 THE BLOODY MARY. J.48 
 
 heard a greater, ' God be praised ; the Lord strengthen thee, 
 Cardmaker ; the Lord Jesus receive thy spirit.' " Every 
 martyr's trial was a battle; every constant death was a 
 defeat of the common enemy; and the instinctive conscious- 
 ness that truth was asserting itself in suffering, converted 
 the natural emotion of horror into admiring pride. 
 
 Yet, for the great purpose of the court, the burnt-offer- 
 ings were ineffectual as the prayers of the priests. The 
 Queen was allowed to persuade herself that she had mistaken 
 her time by two months; and to this hope she clung her- 
 self so long as the hope could last; but among all other 
 persons concerned, scarcely one was any longer under a de- 
 lusion; and the clear-eyed Renard lost no time in laying the 
 position of affairs before his master. 
 
 There was some delay in sending the judgment to Eng- 
 land. It arrived at the beginning of February, and on the 
 i/th, Thirlby and Bonner went down to finish the work at 
 Oxford. The court sat this time in Christ Church Cathe- 
 dral. Cranmer was brought to the bar, and the papal sen- 
 tence was read. The preamble declared that the cause had 
 been heard with indifference, that the accused had been de- 
 fended by an advocate, that witnesses had been examined 
 for him, that he had been allowed every opportunity to an- 
 swer for himself. " O Lor3," he exclaimed, " what lies be 
 these ! that I, being in prison and never suffered to have 
 counsel or advocate at home, should produce witness and 
 appoint counsel at Rome. God must needs punish this shame- 
 less lying." 
 
 Silence would perhaps have been more dignified; to 
 speak at all was an indication of infirmity. As soon as the 
 reading was finished, the archbishop was formally arrayed 
 in his robes, and when the decoration was completed, Bon- 
 ner called out in exultation: 
 
 " This is the man that hath despised the Pope's holiness, 
 and now is to be judged by him; this is the man that hath 
 pulled down so many churches, and now is come to be 
 judged in a church; this is the man that hath contemned 
 the blessed Sacrament of the altar, and now is come to be 
 condemned before that blessed Sacrament hanging over the 
 
 10
 
 146 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 altar; this is the man that, like Lucifer, sat in the place of 
 Christ upon an altar to judge others, and now is come 
 before an altar to be judged himself." 
 
 Thirlby checked the insolence of his companion. The 
 degradation was about to commence, when the archbishop 
 drew from his sleeve an appeal " to the next Free General 
 Council that should be called." It had been drawn after 
 consultation with a lawyer, in the evident hope that it might 
 save or prolong his life, and he attempted to present it to 
 his judges. But he was catching at straws, as in his clearer 
 judgment he would have known. Thirlby said sadly that the 
 appeal could not be received ; his orders were absolute to 
 proceed. 
 
 The robes were stripped off in the usual way. The thin 
 hair was clipped. Ronner with his own hands scraped the 
 finger points which had been touched with the oil of conse- 
 cration ; " Now are you lord no longer," he said, when the 
 ceremony was finished. " All this needed not," Cranmer an- 
 swered ; " I had myself done with this gear long ago." 
 
 He was led off in a beadle's threadbare gown and a 
 tradesman's cap; and here for some important hours authen- 
 tic account of him is lost. What he did, what he said, what 
 was done, or what was said to him, is known only in its 
 results, or in Protestant tradition. Tradition said that he 
 was taken from the cathedral to the house of the Dean of 
 Christ Church, where he was delicately entertained, and 
 worked upon with smooth words, and promises of life. " The 
 noblemen," he was told, " bare him good-will ; he was still 
 strong, and might live many years, why should he cut them 
 short?" The story may contain some elements of truth. 
 But the same evening, certainly, he was again in his cell ; 
 and among the attempts to move him which can be authen- 
 ticated, there was one of a far different kind; a letter ad- 
 dressed to him by Pole to bring him to a sense of his con- 
 dition. 
 
 " Whosoever transgresseth, and abideth not in the doc- 
 trine of Christ," so the legate addressed a prisoner in the 
 expectation of death, " hath not God. He that abideth in the 
 doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son. 
 If there come any unto you and bring not this doctrine, re- 
 ceive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed;
 
 THE BLOODY MARY. 147 
 
 for he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil 
 deeds. There are some who tell me that, in obedience to 
 this command, I ought not to address you, or to have any 
 dealings with you, save the dealings of a judge with a 
 criminal. But Christ came not to judge only, but also to 
 save; I call upon you, not to enter into your house, for so 
 I should make myself a partaker with you; my desire is 
 only to bring you back to the church which you have de- 
 serted. 
 
 " You have corrupted Scripture, you have broken through 
 the communion of saints, and now I tell you what you must 
 do; I tell you, or rather not I, but Christ and the Church 
 through me. Did I follow my own impulse, or did I speak 
 in my own name, I should hold other language ; to you I 
 should not speak at all ; I would address myself only to God ; 
 I would pray Him to let fall the fire of heaven to consume 
 you, and to consume with you the house into which you 
 have entered in abandoning the Church. 
 
 " You pretend that you have used no instruments but 
 reason, to lead men after you; what instrument did the 
 devil use to seduce our parents in Paradise? You have fol- 
 lowed the serpent; with guile you destroyed your king, the 
 realm, and the Church, and you have brought to perdition 
 thousands of human souls. 
 
 " Compared with you, all others who have been concerned 
 in these deeds of evil, are but objects of pity; many of them 
 long resisted temptation, and yielded only to the seductions 
 of your impious tongue ; you made yourself .a bishop, for 
 what purpose but to mock both God and man? Your first 
 act was but to juggle with your king, and you were no 
 sooner Primate than you plotted how you might break your 
 oath to the Holy See ; you took part in the counsels of the 
 Evil One ; you made your home with the wicked ; you sat 
 in the seat of the scornful. You exhorted your king with 
 your fine words to put away his wife; you prated to him 
 of his obligations to submit to the judgment of the Church ; 
 and what has followed that unrighteous sentence? You 
 parted the king from the wife with whom he had lived for 
 twenty years; you parted him from the Church, the com- 
 mon mother of the faithful; and thenceforth throughout the 
 realm law has been trampled under foot, the people have been
 
 148 THE YOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 ground with tyranny, the churches pillaged, the nobility 
 murdered one by the other. 
 
 "Therefore, I say, were I to make my own cries heard 
 in heaven, I would pray God to demand at your hands the 
 blood of His servants. Never had religion, never had the 
 Church of Christ a worse enemy than you have been; now 
 therefore, when you are about to suffer the just reward of 
 your deeds, think no more to excuse yourself; confess your 
 sins, like the penitent thief upon the cross. 
 
 " Say not in your defense that you have done no vio- 
 fence, that you have been kind and gentle in your daily life. 
 Thus I know men speak of you; but cheat not your con- 
 science with so vain a plea. The devil, when called to an- 
 swer for the souls that he has slain, may plead likewise that 
 he did not desire their destruction; he thought only to make 
 them happy, to give them pleasure, honor, riches all things 
 which their hearts desired. So did you with your king: you 
 gave him the woman that he lusted after; you gave him the 
 honor which was not his due, and the good things which 
 were neither his nor yours; and, last and worse, you gave 
 him poison, in coverng his iniquities with a cloak of right- 
 eousness. Better, far better, you had offered him courte- 
 zans for companions; better you and he had been open 
 thieves and robbers. Then he might have understood his 
 crimes, and have repented of them; but you tempted him 
 into the place where there is no repentance, no hope of 
 salvation. 
 
 "Turn then yourself and repent. See yourself as you 
 are. Thus may you escape your prison. Thus may you flee 
 out of the darkness wherein you have hid yourself. Thus may 
 you come back to light and life, and earn for yourself God's 
 forgiveness. I know not how to deal with you. Your ex- 
 amination at Oxford has but hardened you ; yet the issue 
 is with God. I at least can point out to you the way. If 
 you, then, persist in your vain opinions, may God have mercy 
 on you." 
 
 The legate, in his office of guide, then traveled the full 
 round of controversy, through Catholic tradition, through 
 the doctrine of the Sacraments and of the real presence, 
 where there is no need to follow him. At length he drew 
 to his conclusion:
 
 THE BLOODY MARY. 149 
 
 " You will plead Scripture to answer me. Are you so 
 vain, then, are you so foolish, as to suppose that it has been 
 left to you to find out the meaning of those Scriptures which 
 have been in the hands of the Fathers of the Church for 
 so many ages? Confess, confess that you have mocked God 
 in denying that He is present on the altar; wash out your 
 sins with tears; and in the abundance of your sorrow you 
 may find pardon. May it be so. Even for the greatness 
 of your crimes may it be so, that God may have the greater 
 glory. You have not, like others, fallen through simplicity, or 
 fallen through fear. You were corrupted, like the Jews, 
 by earthly rewards and promises. For your own profit you 
 denied the presence of your Lord, and you rebelled against 
 His servant, the Pope. May you see your crimes. May you 
 feel the greatness of your need of mercy. Now, even now, 
 by my mouth, Christ offers you that mercy; and with the 
 passionate hope which I am bound to feel for your salvation, 
 I wait your answer to your Master's call." 
 
 The exact day on which this letter reached the arch- 
 bishop is uncertain, but it was very near the period of his 
 sentence. He had dared death bravely while it was distant; 
 but he was physically timid; the near approach of the agony 
 which he had witnessed in others unnerved him; and in a 
 moment of mental and moral prostration Cranmer may well 
 have looked in the mirror which Pole held up to him, and 
 asked himself whether, after all, the being there described 
 was his true image whether it was himself as others saw 
 him. A faith which had existed for centuries, a faith in 
 which generation after generation have lived happy and vir- 
 tuous lives; a faith in which all good men are agreed, and 
 only the bad dispute such a faith carries an evidence and 
 a weight with it beyond what can be looked for in a creed 
 reasoned out by individuals a creed which had the ban 
 upon it of inherited execration; which had been held in ab- 
 horrence once by him who was now called upon to die for 
 it. Only fools and fanatics believe that they cannot be mis- 
 taken. Sick misgivings may have taken hold upon him in 
 moments of despondency, whether, after all, the millions 
 who received the Roman supremacy might not be more 
 right than the thousands who denied it; whether the argu- 
 ment on the real presence, which had satisfied him for fifty
 
 150 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 years, might not be better founded than his recent doubts. 
 It is not possible for a man of gentle and modest nature to 
 feel himself the object of intense detestation without uneasy 
 pangs ; and as such thoughts came and went, a window 
 might seem to open, through which there was a return to life 
 and freedom. His trial was not greater than hundreds of 
 others had borne, and would bear with constancy; but the 
 temperaments of men are unequally constituted, and a subtle 
 intellect and a sensitive organization are not qualifications 
 which make martyrdom easy. 
 
 Life, by the law of the Church, by justice, by precedent, 
 was given to all who would accept it on terms of submis- 
 sion. That the archbishop should be tempted to recant, with 
 the resolution formed, notwithstanding, that he should still 
 suffer, whether he yielded or whether he was obstinate, was 
 a suspicion which his experience of the legate had not 
 taught him to entertain. 
 
 So it was that Cranmer's spirit gave way, and he who 
 had disdained to fly when flight was open to him, because 
 he considered that, having done the most in establishing the 
 Reformation, he was bound to face the responsibility of it, 
 fell at last under the protraction of the trial. 
 
 The day of his degradation the archbishop had eaten 
 little. In the evening he returned to his cell in a state of 
 exhaustion. The same night, or the next day, he sent in 
 his first submission, which was forwarded on the instant to 
 the Queen. It was no sooner gone than he recalled it, and 
 then vacillating again, he drew a second, in slightly altered 
 words, which he signed and did not recall. There had been 
 a struggle in which the weaker nature had prevailed, and 
 the orthodox leaders made haste to improve their triumph. 
 The first step being over, confessions far more humiliating 
 could now be extorted. Bonner came to his cell, and ob- 
 tained from him a promise in writing, " to submit to the 
 king and queen in all their laws and ordinances, as well 
 touching the Pope's supremacy as in all other things ; " with 
 an engagement further " to move and stir all others to do 
 the like," and to live in quietness and obedience, without 
 murmur or grudging; his book on the Sacrament he would 
 submit to the next general council. 
 
 These three submissions must have followed one another
 
 THE BLOODY MARY. 151 
 
 rapidly. On the i6th of February, two days only after his 
 trial, he made a fourth, and yielding the point which he 
 had reserved, he declared that he believed all the articles 
 of the Christian religion as the Catholic Church believed. 
 But so far he had spoken generally, and the court required 
 particulars. In a fifth and longer submission, he was made 
 to anathematize particularly the heresies of Luther and Zuin- 
 glius; to accept the Pope as the head of the Church, out of 
 which was no salvation; to acknowledge the real presence in 
 the Eucharist, the seven sacraments as received by the 
 Roman Catholics, and purgatory. He professed his peni- 
 tence for having once held or taught otherwise, and he 
 implored the prayers of all faithful Christians, that those 
 whom he had seduced might be brought back to the true 
 fold. 
 
 The demands of the Church might have been satisfied 
 by these last admissions; but Cranmer had not yet expiated 
 his personal offenses against the Queen and her mother, and 
 he was to drain the cup of humiliation to the dregs. 
 
 A month was allowed to pass. He was left with the 
 certainty of his shame,, and the uncertainty whether, after 
 all, it had not been encountered in vain. On the i8th of 
 March, one more paper was submitted to his signature, in 
 which he confessed to be all which Pole had described him. 
 He called himself a blasphemer and a persecutor; being 
 unable to undo his evil work, he had no hope, he said, save 
 in the example of the thief upon the cross, who, when other 
 means of reparation were taken from him, made amends to 
 God with his lips. He was unworthy of mercy, and he de- 
 served eternal vengeance. He had sinned against King 
 Henry and his wife; he was the cause of the divorce, from 
 which, as from a seed, had sprung up schism, heresy, and 
 crime; he had opened a window to false doctrines of which 
 he had been himself the most pernicious teacher; especially 
 he reflected with anguish that he had denied the presence 
 of his Maker in the consecrated elements. He had deceived 
 the living, and he had robbed the souls of the dead by stealing 
 from them their masses. He prayed the Pope to pardon him ; 
 he prayed the King and Queen to pardon him ; he prayed God 
 Almighty to pardon him as He had pardoned Mary Mag-
 
 152 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 dalen, or to look upon him as, from His own cross, He had 
 looked upon the thief. 
 
 The most ingenious malice could invent no deeper deg- 
 radation, and the archbishop might now die. One favor 
 was granted to him alone of all the sufferers for religion 
 that he might speak at his death; speak, and, like North- 
 umberland, perish with a recantation on his lips. 
 
 The hatred against him was confined to the court. 
 Even among those who had the deepest distaste for his 
 opinions, his character had won affection and respect; and 
 when it was known that he was executed, there was a 
 wide-spread and profound emotion. " Although," says 
 a Catholic who witnessed his death, " his former life 
 and wretched end deserved a greater misery, if any 
 greater might have chanced to him, yet, setting aside 
 his offense to God and his country, beholding the man with- 
 out his faults, I think there was none that pitied not his 
 case and bewailed not his fortune, and feared not his own 
 chance, to see so noble a prelate, so grave a councilor, of so 
 long-continued honors, after so many dignities, in his old 
 years to be deprived of his estate, adjudged to die, and in 
 so painful a death to end his life." 
 
 On Saturday, the 2ist of March, Lord Williams was 
 again ordered into Oxford to keep the peace, with Lord 
 Chandos, Sir Thomas Brydges, and other gentlemen of the 
 county. If they allowed themselves to countenance by their 
 presence the scene which they were about to witness, it is 
 to be remembered that but a few years since, these same 
 gentlemen had seen Catholic priests swinging from the 
 pinnacles of their churches. The memory of the evil 
 days was still recent, and amidst the tumult of conflicting 
 passions no one could trust his neighbor, and organized re- 
 sistance was impracticable. 
 
 The March morning broke wild and stormy. The sermon 
 intended to be preached at the stake was adjourned, in con- 
 sequence of the wet, to St. Mary's, where a high stage was 
 erected, on which Cranmer was to stand conspicuous. 
 Peers, knights, doctors, students, priests, men-at-arms, and 
 citizens, thronged the narrow aisles, and through the midst 
 of them the archbishop was led in by the mayor. As he 
 mounted the platform, many of the spectators were in tears.
 
 THE BLOODY MARY. 153 
 
 He knelt and prayed silently, and Cole, the Provost of 
 Eton, then took his place in the pulpit. 
 
 Although, by a strained interpretation of the law, it 
 could be pretended that the time of grace had expired with 
 the trial, yet, to put a man to death at all after recantation 
 was a proceeding so violent and unusual that some excuse 
 or some explanation was felt to be necessary. 
 
 Cole therefore first declared why it was expedient that 
 the late archbishop should suffer, notwithstanding his rec- 
 onciliation. One reason was, " for that he had been a great 
 causer of all the alterations in the realm of England; and 
 when the matter of the divorce between King Henry VIII 
 and Queen Catherine was commenced in the court of Rome, 
 he, having nothing to do with it, sat upon it as a judge, 
 which was the entry to all the inconvenients which fol- 
 lowed." Yet in that Mr. Cole excused him that he thought 
 he did it, not " out of malice, but by the persuasion and advice 
 of certain learned men." 
 
 Another occasion was, n for that he had been the great 
 setter forth of all the heresy received into the Church in the 
 latter times; had written in it, had disputed, had continued 
 it even to the last hour; and it had never been seen in the 
 time of schism that any man continuing so long had been 
 pardoned, and that it was not to be remitted for example's 
 sake." 
 
 " And other causes," Cole added, " moved the queen and 
 council thereto, which were not meet and convenient for 
 every one to understand." 
 
 The explanations being finished, the preacher exhorted 
 his audience to take example from the spectacle before them, 
 to fear God, and to learn that there was no power against 
 the Lord. There, in their presence, stood a man, once "of 
 so high degree sometime one of the chief prelates of the 
 Church an archbishop, the chief of the council, the second 
 person of the realm: of long time, it might be thought, in 
 great assurance, a king on his side ; " and now, " notwith- 
 standing all his authority and defense, debased from a high 
 estate unto a low degree of a councilor become a caitiff, 
 and set in so wretched estate that the poorest wretch would 
 not change conditions with him." 
 
 Turning, in conclusion, to Cranmer himself. Cole then
 
 154 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 "comforted and encouraged him to take his death well by 
 many places in Scripture, bidding him nothing mistrust but 
 that he should incontinently receive that the thief did, to 
 whom Christ said, ' To-day shalt thou be with me in Par- 
 adise.' Out of Paul he armed him against the terrors of 
 fire, by the words, ' The Lord is faithful, and will not suf- 
 fer you to be tempted beyond that which you are able to 
 bear; by the example of the three children, to whom God 
 made the flame seem like a pleasant joy; by the rejoicing 
 of St. Andrew on his cross; by the patience of St. Lawrence 
 on the fire." He dwelt upon his conversion, which, he said, 
 was the special work of God, because so many efforts had 
 been made by men to work upon him, and had been made 
 in vain. God, in His own time, had reclaimed him, and 
 brought him home. 
 
 A dirge, the preacher said, should be sung for him in 
 every church in Oxford; he charged all the priests to say 
 each a mass for the repose of his soul; and finally, he de- 
 sired the congregation present to kneel where they were, 
 and pray for him. 
 
 The whole crowd fell on their knees, the archbishop with 
 them ; and " I think," says the eye-witness, " that there was 
 never such a number so earnestly praying together; for 
 they that hated him before now loved him for his conversion 
 and hopes of continuance: they that loved him before 
 could not suddenly hate him, having hope of his confession; 
 so love and hope increased devotion on every side." 
 
 " I shall not need," says the same writer, " to describe 
 his behavior for the time of sermon, his sorrowful coun- 
 tenance, his heavy cheer, his face bedewed with tears; some- 
 times lifting his eyes to heaven in hope, sometimes casting 
 them down to the earth for shame to be brief, an image 
 of sorrow, the dolor of his heart bursting out of his eyes, re- 
 taining ever a quiet and grave behavior, which increased 
 the pity in men's hearts." 
 
 His own turn to speak was now come. When the prayer 
 was finished, the preacher said, " Lest any man should doubt 
 the sincerity of this man's repentance, you shall hear him 
 speak before you. I pray you, Master Cranmer," he added, 
 turning to him, " that you will now perform that you prom-
 
 THE BLOODY MARY. 155 
 
 ised not long ago ; that you would openly express the true 
 and undoubted profession of your faith." 
 
 " I will do it," the archbishop answered. 
 
 " Good Christian people," he began, " my dear, beloved 
 brethren and sisters in Christ, I beseech you most heartily 
 to pray for me to Almighty God that He will forgive me all 
 my sins and offenses which be many and without number, 
 and great above measure; one thing grieveth my conscience 
 more than all the rest, whereof, God willing, I shall speak 
 more ; but how many or how great soever they be, I be- 
 seech you to pray God of His mercy to pardon and forgive 
 them all." 
 
 Falling again on his knees: 
 
 " O Father of heaven," he prayed, " O Son of God, 
 Redeemer of the world; O Holy Ghost, three Persons and 
 one God, have mercy upon me, most wretched caitiff and 
 miserable sinner. I have offended both heaven and earth 
 more than my tongue can express; whither, then, may I go, 
 or whither should I flee for succor? To heaven I am 
 ashamed to lift up mine eyes, and in earth I find no succor 
 nor refuge. What shall I do ? Shall I despair ? God forbid ! 
 Oh, good God, Thou art merciful, and refusest none that 
 come to Thee for succor. To Thee, therefore, do I come ; to 
 Thee do I humble myself, saying, O Lord, my sins be great; 
 yet have mercy on me for Thy great mercy. The mystery 
 was not wrought that God became man, for few or little 
 offenses. Thou didst not give Thy Son, O Father, for small 
 sins only, but for all and the greatest in the world, so that 
 the sinner return to Thee with a penitent heart, as I do at 
 this present. Wherefore have mercy upon me, O Lord, 
 whose property is always to have mercy ; although my sins 
 be great, yet is Thy mercy greater; wherefore have mercy 
 upon me, O Lord, for Thy great mercy. I crave nothing, 
 O Lord, for mine own merits, but for Thy name's sake, 
 and, therefore, O Father of Heaven, hallowed be thy name." 
 
 Then rising, he went on with his address: 
 
 " Every man desireth, good people, at the time of his 
 death, to give some good exhortation that others may re- 
 member after his death and be the better thereby; for one 
 word spoken of a man at his last end will be more remem- 
 bered than the sermons made of them that live and remain.
 
 156 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 So I beseech God grant me grace, that I may speak some- 
 thing at my departing whereby God may be glorified and 
 you edified. 
 
 " But it is an heavy case to see that many folks be so 
 doted upon the love of this false world, and be so careful 
 for it, that of the love of God or the world to come they 
 seem to care very little or nothing; therefore this shall be 
 my first exhortation that you set not overmuch by this 
 glozing world, but upon God and the world to come; and 
 learn what this lesson meaneth which St. John teacheth, that 
 the love of the world is hatred against God. 
 
 " The second exhortation is, that next unto God, you obey 
 your king and queen willingly, without murmur or grudging, 
 not for fear of them only, but much more for the fear of 
 God, knowing that they be God's ministers, appointed of God 
 to rule and govern you, and therefore whosoever resisteth 
 them resisteth God's ordinance. 
 
 " The third exhortation is, that you live all together like 
 brethren and sisters : but, alas ! pity it is to see what con- 
 tention and hatred one man hath against another, not taking 
 each other for brethren and sisters, but rather as strangers 
 and mortal enemies. But I pray you learn and bear well 
 away the lesson, to do good to all men as much as in you 
 lieth, and hurt no man no more than you would hurt your 
 own natural brother or sister. For this you may be sure, 
 that whosoever hateth his brother or sister, and goeth about 
 maliciously to hinder or hurt him, surely, and without all 
 doubt, God is not with that man, although he think himself 
 never so much in God's favor. 
 
 " The fourth exhortation shall be to them that have great 
 substance and riches of this world, that they may well con- 
 sider and weigh these three sayings of the Scriptures. One 
 is of our Savior Christ Himself, who saith that it is a hard 
 thing for a rich man to come to heaven ; a sore saying, and 
 spoken of Him that knoweth the truth. The second is of 
 St. John, whose saying is this: He that hath the substance 
 of this world, and seeth his brother in necessity, and shutteth 
 up his compassion and mercy from him, how can he say he 
 loveth God? The third is of St. James, who speaketh to the 
 covetous and rich men after this manner: Weep and howl 
 for the misery which shall come upon you; your riches doth
 
 THE BLOODY MARY. 157 
 
 rot, your clothes be moth-eaten, your gold and silver is 
 cankered and rusty, and the rust thereof shall bear witness 
 against you, and consume you like fire; you gather and 
 hoard up treasure of God's indignation against the last day. 
 I tell them which be rich, ponder these sentences; for if 
 ever they had occasion to show their charity, they have it 
 now at this present; the poor people being so many, and 
 victuals so dear; for although I have been long in prison, 
 yet have I heard of the great penury of the poor." 
 
 The people listened breathless, " intending upon the con- 
 clusion." 
 
 " And now," he went on, " forasmuch as I come to the 
 last end of my life, whereupon hangeth all my life past and 
 all my life to come, either to live with my Savior Christ in 
 joy, or else to be ever in pain with wicked devils in hell; 
 and I see before mine eyes presently either heaven " and he 
 pointed upwards with his hand " or hell," and he pointed 
 downwards, " ready to swallow me, I shall therefore declare 
 unto you my very faith, without color or dissimulation ; for 
 now it is no time to dissemble. I believe in God the Father 
 Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth; in every article of 
 the Catholic faith; every word and sentence taught by our 
 Savior Christ, His apostles, and prophets, in the Old and 
 New Testament. 
 
 " And now I come to the great thing that troubleth my 
 conscience more than any other thing that ever I said or 
 did in my life, and that is the setting abroad of writings 
 contrary to the truth, which here I now renounce and refuse, 
 as things written with my hand contrary to the truth which 
 I thought in my heart, and written for fear of death to save 
 my life, if it might be: and that is, all such bills and papers 
 as I have written and signed with my hand since my degrada- 
 tion wherein I have written many things untrue; and for- 
 asmuch as my hand offended in writing contrary to my heart, 
 my hand therefore shall first be punished ; for if I may 
 come to the fire, it shall be the first burned. As for the Pope. 
 I utterly refuse him, as Christ's enemy and Antichrist, with 
 all his false doctrine ; and as for the Sacrament, I believe as 
 I have taught in my book against the Bishop of Winchester." 
 
 So far the archbishop was allowed to continue, before 
 his astonished hearers could collect themselves. " Play the
 
 158 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 Christian man,'' Lord Williams at length was able to call; 
 " remember yourself ; do not dissemble." " Alas ! my Lord," 
 the archbishop answered, " I have been a man that all my 
 life loved plainness, and never dissembled till now, which I 
 am most sorry for." He would have gone on ; but cries 
 now rose on all sides, " Pull him down," " Stop his mouth," 
 " Away with him," and he was borne off by the throng out 
 of the church. The stake was a quarter of a mile distant, at 
 the spot already consecrated by the deaths of Ridley and 
 Latiraer. Priests and monks " who did rue to see him go so 
 wickedly to his death, ran after him, exhorting him, while 
 time was, to remember himself." But Cranmer, having flung 
 down the burden of his shame, had recovered his strength, 
 and such words had no longer power to trouble him. He 
 approached the stake with " a cheerful countenance," un- 
 dressed in haste, and stood upright in his shirt. Soto and 
 another Spanish friar continued expostulating; but finding 
 they could effect nothing, one said in Latin to the other, 
 " Let us go from him, for the devil is within him." An 
 Oxford theologian his name was Ely being more clamor- 
 ous, drew from him only the answer that, as touching his 
 recantation, "he repented him right sore, because he knew 
 that it was against the truth." 
 
 " Make short, make short ! " Lord Williams cried, hastily. 
 
 The archbishop shook hands with his friends; Ely only 
 drew back, calling, " Recant, recant," and bidding others not 
 approach him. 
 
 " This was the hand that wrote it," Cramner said, ex- 
 tending his right arm; "this was the hand that wrote it, 
 therefore it shall suffer first punishment." Before his body 
 was touched, he held the offending member steadily in the 
 flame, " and never stirred nor cried." The wood was dry 
 and mercifully laid; the fire was rapid at its work, and he 
 was soon dead. " His friends," said a Catholic bystander, 
 " sorrowed for love, his enemies for pity, strangers for a 
 common kind of humanity, whereby we are bound to one 
 another."
 
 INQUISITION UNDER FERDINAND AND ISABELLA. 159 
 
 The Inquisition under Ferdinand and Isabella. 
 
 Prescott's Ferdinand and Isabella. 
 
 This chapter of Prescott's reliable history is certainly one 
 of the most enlightening portrayals of a society of men who 
 claim to be God's representatives, but who in reality have ex- 
 hibited all those qualities which are usually ascribed to Satan 
 only. All true history has its worth, but it is just such portions 
 of it as this that throw a light upon the condition of humanity 
 which will be of abiding profit to those who study it aright. 
 
 Those who seek more information on the history of the 
 Inquisition we refer to the famous work of D. Jean Antoine 
 Llorente, The History of the Inquisition of Spain, from the 
 Time of Its Establishment to the Reign of Ferdinand VII. 
 Composed from the Original Documents in the Archives of 
 the Supreme Council, and from those of Subordinate Tribunals 
 of the Holy Office. 8vo, London, 1826. This is a free trans- 
 lation of the voluminous Spanish work, so abridged as to make 
 it more readable and also more accessible to the general public. 
 Llorente was the secretary of the Inquisition, a man of great 
 learning, having in his possession the documents wherein this 
 fiendish institution has given the most damaging testimony 
 against itself. Prescott says of Llorente's work : " It well 
 deserves to be studied, as the record of the most humiliating 
 triumph which fanaticism has ever been able to obtain over 
 human reason, and that, too, during the most civilized periods, 
 and in the most civilized portions of the world." And then he 
 adds significantly : " The persecutions endured by the unfor- 
 tunate author of the work prove that the embers of this 
 fanaticism may be rekindled too easily, even in the present 
 century." 
 
 In the present liberal state of knowledge we look with 
 disgust at the pretensions of any human being, however ex- 
 alted, to invade the sacred rights of conscience, inalienably 
 possessed by every man. We feel that the spiritual con- 
 cerns of an individual may be safely left to himself as most 
 interested in them, except so far as they can be affected by 
 argument or friendly monition; that the idea of compelling 
 belief in particular doctrines is a solecism, as absurd as 
 wicked; and. so far from condemning to the stake, or the 
 gibbet, men who pertinaciously adhere to their conscientious 
 opinions in contempt of personal interests and in the face of 
 danger, we should rather feel disposed to imitate the spirit of 
 antiquity in raising altars and statues to their memory, as 
 having displayed the highest efforts of human virtue. But,
 
 160 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 although these truths are now so obvious as rather to deserve 
 the name of truisms, the world has been slow, very slow, in 
 arriving at them, after many centuries of unspeakable oppres- 
 sion and misery. 
 
 * * * 
 
 The policy of the Roman Church, at that time, was not 
 only shown in its perversion of some of the most obvious 
 principles of morality, but in the discouragement of all free 
 inquiry in its disciples, whom it instructed to rely implicitly 
 in matters of conscience on their spiritual advisers. The 
 artful institution of the tribunal of confession, established 
 with this view, brought, as it were, the whole Christian 
 world at the feet of the clergy, who, far from being always 
 animated by the meek spirit of the Gospel, almost justified 
 the reproach of Voltaire, that confessors have been the source 
 of most of the violent measures pursued by princes of the 
 Catholic faith. 
 
 Isabella's serious temper, as well as early education, 
 naturally disposed her to religious influences. Notwith- 
 standing the independence exhibited by her in all secular 
 affairs, in her own spiritual concerns she uniformly testified 
 the deepest humility, and deferred too implicitly to what she 
 deemed the superior sagacity, or sanctity, of her spiritual 
 advisers. An instance of this humility may be worth record- 
 ing. When Fray Fernando de Talavera, afterwards arch- 
 bishop of Granada, who had been appointed confessor to the 
 Queen, attended her for the first time in that capacity, he 
 continued seated, after she had knelt down to make her con- 
 fession, which drew from her the remark, " that it was usual 
 for both parties to kneel." " No," replied the priest, " this 
 is God's tribunal ; I act here as His minister, and it is fitting 
 that I should keep my seat, while your Highness kneels be- 
 fore me." Isabella, far from taking umbrage at the ecclesi- 
 astic's arrogant demeanor, complied with all humility, and 
 was afterwards heard to say, " This is the confessor that I 
 wanted." 
 
 Well had it been for the land if the Queen's conscience 
 had always been intrusted to the keeping of persons of such 
 exemplary piety as Talavera. Unfortunately, in her early 
 days, during the lifetime of her brother Henry, that charge 
 was committed to a Dominican monk, Thomas de Torque-
 
 INQUISITION UNDER FERDINAND AND ISABELLA. 161 
 
 mada, a native of old Castile, subsequently raised to the 
 rank of prior of Santa Cruz in Segovia, and condemned to 
 infamous immortality by the signal part which he performed 
 in the tragedy of the Inquisition. This man, who concealed 
 more pride under his monastic weeds than might have fur- 
 nished forth a convent of his order, was one of that class 
 with whom zeal passes for religion, and who testify their 
 zeal by a fiery persecution of those whose creed differs from 
 their own. This personage had earnestly labored to infuse 
 into Isabella's young mind, to which his situation as her 
 confessor gave him such ready access, the same spirit of 
 fanaticism that glowed in his own. Fortunately, this was 
 greatly counteracted by her sound understanding and natural 
 kindness of heart. Torquemada urged her, or, indeed, as is 
 stated by some, extorted a promise, that, " should she ever 
 come to the throne she would devote herself to the extirpa- 
 tion of heresy, for the glory of God and the exaltation of 
 the Catholic faith." The time was now arrived when this 
 fatal promise was to be discharged. 
 
 It is due to Isabella's fame to state thus much in pallia- 
 tion of the unfortunate error into which she was led by her 
 misguided zeal ; an error so grave, that, like a vein in some 
 noble piece of statuary, it gives a sinister expression to her 
 otherwise unblemished character. It was not until the Queen 
 had endured the repeated importunities of the clergy, par- 
 ticularly of those reverend persons in whom she most con- 
 fided, seconded by the arguments of Ferdinand, that she con- 
 sented to solicit from the pope a bull for the introduction of 
 the Holy Office into Castile. Sixtus IV, who at that time 
 filled the pontifical chair, easily discerning the sources of 
 wealth and influence which this measure opened to the court 
 of Rome, readily complied with the petition of the sovereigns, 
 and expedited a bull bearing date November i, 1478, author- 
 izing them to appoint two or three ecclesiastics, inquisitors for 
 the detection and suppression of heresy throughout their 
 dominions. 
 
 The Queen, however, still averse to violent measures, 
 suspended the operation of the ordinance until a more lenient 
 policy had been first tried. By her command, accordingly, 
 the archbishop of Seville, Cardinal Mendoza, drew up a cate- 
 chism exhibiting the different points of the Catholic faith, 
 11
 
 162 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 and instructed the clergy throughout his diocese to spare no 
 pains in illuminating the benighted Israelites by means of 
 friendly exhortation and a candid exposition of the true 
 principles of Christianity. How far the spirit of these in- 
 junctions was complied with, amid the excitement then pre- 
 vailing, may be reasonably doubted. There could be little 
 doubt, however, that a report, made two years later, by a 
 commission of ecclesiastics, with Alfonso de Ojeda at its 
 head, respecting the progress of the reformation, would be 
 necessarily unfavorable to the Jews. In consequence of this 
 report the papal provisions were enforced by the nomination, 
 on the 1 7th of September, 1480, of two Dominican monks as 
 inquisitors, with two other ecclesiastics, the one as assessor, 
 and the other as procurator fiscal, with instructions to pro- 
 ceed at once to Seville, and enter on the duties of their office. 
 Orders were also issued to the authorities of the city to sup- 
 port the inquisitors by all the aid in their power. But the 
 new institution, which has since become the miserable boast 
 of the Castilians, proved so distasteful to them in its origin 
 that they refused any cooperation with its ministers, and in- 
 deed opposed such delays and embarrassments, that, during 
 the first years, it can scarcely be said to have obtained a 
 footing in any other places in Andalusia than those belong- 
 ing to the crown. 
 
 On the 2d of January, 1481, the court commenced opera- 
 tions by the publication of an edict, followed by several 
 others, requiring all persons to aid in apprehending and 
 accusing all such as they might know or suspect to be guilty 
 of heresy, and holding out the illusory promise of absolution 
 to such as should confess their errors within a limited period. 
 As every mode of accusation, even anonymous, was invited, 
 the number of victims multiplied so fast that the tribunal 
 found it convenient to remove its sittings from the convent 
 of St. Paul, within the city, to the spacious fortress of Triana, 
 in the suburbs. 
 
 The presumptive proofs by which the charge of Judaism 
 was established against the accused are so curious that a 
 few of them may deserve notice. It was considered good 
 evidence of the fact, if the prisoner wore better clothes or 
 cleaner linen on the Jewish Sabbath than on other days of 
 the week; if he had no fire in his house the preceding even-
 
 INQUISITION UNDER FERDINAND AND ISABELLA. 163 
 
 ing; if he sat at table with Jews, or ate the meat of animals 
 slaughtered by their hands, or drank a certain beverage held 
 in much estimation by them ; if he washed a corpse in warm 
 water, or when dying turned his face to the wall ; or, finally, 
 if he gave Hebrew names to his children ; a provision most 
 whimsically cruel, since, by a law of Henry II, he was pro- 
 hibited under severe penalties from giving them Christian 
 names. He must have found it difficult to extricate himself 
 from the horns of this dilemma. Such are a few of the cir- 
 cumstances, some of them purely accidental in their nature, 
 others the result of early habit, which might well have con- 
 tinued after a sincere conversion to Christianity, and all of 
 them trivial, on which capital accusations were to be alleged, 
 and even satisfactorily established. 
 
 The inquisitors, adopting the wily and tortuous policy of 
 the ancient tribunal, proceeded with a dispatch which shows 
 that they could have paid little deference even to this affec- 
 tation of legal form. On the sixth day of January, six con- 
 victs suffered at the stake. Seventeen more were executed in 
 March, and a still greater number in the month following; 
 and by the 4th of November in the same year, no less than 
 two hundred and ninety-eight individuals had been sacrificed 
 in the autos da fe of Seville. Besides these, the moldering 
 remains of many who had been tried and convicted after 
 their death were torn up from their graves, with a hyena-like 
 ferocity, which has disgraced no other court, Christian or 
 pagan, and condemned to the common funeral pile. This was 
 prepared on a spacious stone scaffold, erected in the suburbs 
 of the city, with the statues of four prophets attached to the 
 corners, to which the unhappy sufferers were bound for the 
 sacrifice, and which the worthy curate of Los Palacios cele- 
 brates with much complacency as the spot " where heretics 
 were burned, and ought to burn as long as any can be found." 
 
 Many of the convicts were persons estimable for learning 
 and probity; and, among these, three clergymen are named, 
 together with other individuals filling judicial or high munici- 
 pal stations. The sword of justice was observed, in par- 
 ticular, to strike at the wealthy, the least pardonable offenders 
 in times of proscription. 
 
 The plague which desolated Seville this year, sweeping 
 off fifteen thousand inhabitants, as if in token of the wrath
 
 164 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 of Heaven at these enormities, did not palsy for a moment 
 the arm of the Inquisition, which, adjourning to Aracena, 
 continued as indefatigable as before. A similar persecution 
 went forward in other parts of the province of Andalusia, so 
 that within the same year, 1481, the number of the sufferers 
 was computed at two thousand burned alive, a still greater 
 number in effigy, and seventeen thousand reconciled, a term 
 which must not be understood by the reader to signify any- 
 thing like a pardon or amnesty, but only the commutation of 
 a capital sentence for inferior penalties, as fines, civil inca- 
 pacity, very generally total confiscation of property, and not 
 unfrequently imprisonment for life. 
 
 The Jews were astounded by the bolt which had fallen so 
 unexpectedly upon them. Some succeeded in making their 
 escape to Granada, others to France, Germany, or Italy, 
 where they appealed from the decisions of the Holy Office to 
 the sovereign pontiff. Sixtus IV appears for a moment to 
 have been touched with something like compunction; for he 
 rebuked the intemperate zeal of the inquisitors, and even 
 menaced them with deprivation. But these feelings, it would 
 seem, were but transient; for, in 1483, we find the same 
 pontiff quieting the scruples of Isabella respecting the appro- 
 priation of the confiscated property, and encouraging both 
 sovereigns to proceed in the great work of purification, by 
 an audacious reference to the example of Jesus Christ, who, 
 says he, consolidated His kingdom on earth by the destruc- 
 tion of idolatry; and he concludes with imputing their suc- 
 cesses in the Moorish war, upon which they had then entered, 
 to their zeal for the faith, and promising them the like in 
 future. In the course of the same year, he expedited two 
 briefs, appointing Thomas de Torquemada inquisitor-general 
 of Castile and Aragon, and clothing him with full powers to 
 frame a new constitution for the Holy Office. This was the 
 origin of that terrible tribunal, the Spanish or modern In- 
 quisition, familiar to most readers, whether of history or 
 romance, which for three centuries has extended its iron sway 
 over the dominions of Spain and Portugal. Without going 
 into details respecting the organization of its various courts, 
 which gradually swelled to thirteen during the present reign, 
 I shall endeavor to exhibit the principles which regulated 
 their proceedings, as deduced in part from the code digested
 
 INQUISITION UNDER FERDINAND AND ISABELLA. 165 
 
 under Torquemada, and partly from the practice which ob- 
 tained during his supremacy. 
 
 Edicts were ordered to be published annually, on the first 
 two Sundays in Lent, throughout the churches, enjoining it 
 as a sacred duty on all who knew or suspected another to 
 be guilty of heresy to lodge information against him before 
 the Holy Office ; and the ministers of religion were instructed 
 to refuse absolution to such as hesitated to comply with this, 
 although the suspected person might stand in the relation of 
 parent, child, husband, or wife. All accusations, anonymous 
 as well as signed, were admitted, it being only necessary to 
 specify the names of the witnesses, whose testimony was 
 taken down in writing by a secretary, and afterwards read 
 to them, which, unless the inaccuracies were so gross as to 
 force themselves upon their attention, they seldom failed to 
 confirm. 
 
 The accused, in the mean time, whose mysterious disap- 
 pearance was perhaps the only public evidence of his arrest, 
 was conveyed to the secret chambers of the Inquisition, where 
 he was jealously excluded from intercourse with all, save a 
 priest of the Romish Church and his jailer, both of whom 
 might be regarded as the spies of the tribunal. In this deso- 
 late condition, the unfortunate man, cut off from external 
 communication and all cheering sympathy or support, was 
 kept for some time in ignorance even of the nature of the 
 charges preferred against him, and at length, instead of the 
 original process, was favored only with extracts from the 
 depositions of the witnesses, so garbled as to conceal every 
 possible clue to their name and quality. With still greater 
 unfairness, no mention whatever was made of such testimony 
 as had arisen, in the course of the examination, in his own 
 favor. Counsel was indeed allowed from a list presented by 
 his judges. But this privilege availed little, since the parties 
 were not permitted to confer together, and the advocate was 
 furnished with no other sources of information than what 
 had been granted to his client. To add to the injustice of 
 these proceedings, every discrepancy in the statements of 
 the witnesses was converted into a separate charge against 
 the prisoner, who thus, instead of one crime, stood accused 
 of several. This, taken in connection with the concealment 
 of time, place, and circumstance in the accusations, created
 
 166 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 such embarrassment, that, unless the accused was possessed 
 of unusual acuteness and presence of mind, it was sure to 
 involve him, in his attempts to explain, in inextricable con- 
 tradiction. 
 
 If the prisoner refused to confess his guilt, or, as was 
 usual, was suspected of evasion, or an attempt to conceal the 
 truth, he was subjected to the torture. This, which was 
 administered in the deepest vaults of the Inquisition, where 
 the cries of the victim could fall on no ear save that of his 
 tormentors, is admitted by the secretary of the Holy Office, 
 who has furnished the most authentic report of its transac- 
 tions, not to have been exaggerated in any of the numerous 
 narratives which have dragged these subterranean horrors 
 into light. If the intensity of pain extorted a confession 
 from the sufferer, he was expected, if he survived, which did 
 not always happen, to confirm it on the next day. Should he 
 refuse to do this, his mutilated members were condemned to 
 a repetition of the same sufferings, until his obstinacy (it 
 should rather have been termed his heroism) might be van- 
 quished. Should the rack, however, prove ineffectual to force 
 a confession of his guilt, he was so far from being considered 
 as having established his innocence, that, with a barbarity 
 unknown to any tribunal where the torture has been ad- 
 mitted, and which of itself proves its utter incompetency to 
 the ends it proposes, he was not unfrequently convicted on 
 the depositions of the witnesses. At the conclusion of his 
 mock trial, the prisoner was again returned to his dungeon, 
 where, without the blaze of a single fagot to dispel the cold, 
 or illuminate the darkness of the long winter night, he was 
 left in unbroken silence to await the doom which was to 
 consign him to an ignominious death, or a life scarcely less 
 ignominious. 
 
 The proceedings of the tribunal, as I have stated them, 
 were plainly characterized throughout by the most flagrant 
 injustice and inhumanity to the accused. Instead of pre- 
 suming his innocence until his guilt had been established, it 
 acted on exactly the opposite principle. Instead of affording 
 him the protection accorded by every other judicature, and 
 especially demanded in his forlorn situation, it used the most 
 insidious arts to circumvent and to crush him. He had no 
 remedy against malice or misapprehension on the part of his
 
 INQUISITION UNDER FERDINAND AND ISABELLA. 167 
 
 accusers, or the witnesses against him, who might be his 
 bitterest enemies, since they were never revealed to, nor con- 
 fronted with, the prisoner, nor subjected to a cross-examina- 
 tion, which can best expose error or willful collusion in the 
 evidence. Even the poor forms of justice, recognized in this 
 court, might be readily dispensed with, as its proceedings 
 were impenetrably shrouded from the public eye, by the ap- 
 palling oath of secrecy imposed on all, whether functionaries, 
 witnesses, or prisoners, who entered within its precincts. 
 The last, and not the least odious feature of the whole, was 
 the connection established between the condemnation of the 
 accused and the interests of his judges, since the confisca- 
 tions, which were the uniform penalties of heresy, were not 
 permitted to flow into the royal exchequer until they had first 
 discharged the expenses, whether in the shape of salaries or 
 otherwise, incident to the Holy Office. 
 
 The last scene in this dismal tragedy was the act of faith 
 (auto da fe), the most imposing spectacle, probably, which 
 has been witnessed since the ancient Roman triumph, and 
 which, as intimated by a Spanish writer, was intended, some- 
 what profanely, to represent the terrors of the Day of Judg- 
 ment. The proudest grandees of the land, on this occasion, 
 putting on the sable livery of familiars of the Holy Office 
 and bearing aloft its banners, condescended to act as the es- 
 cort of its ministers, while the ceremony was not unfre- 
 quently countenanced by the royal presence. It should be 
 stated, however, that neither of these acts of condescension, 
 or, more properly, humiliation, were witnessed until a period 
 posterior to the present reign. The effect was further 
 heightened by the concourse of ecclesiastics in their sacerdotal 
 robes, and the pompous ceremonial, which the Church of 
 Rome knows so well how to display on fitting occasions, and 
 which was intended to consecrate, as it were, this bloody sac- 
 rifice by the authority of a religion which has expressly 
 declared that it desires mercy, and not sacrifice. 
 
 The most important actors in the scene were the unfor- 
 tunate convicts, who were now disgorged for the first time 
 from the dungeons of the tribunal. They were clad in coarse 
 woolen garments, styled son benitos, brought close round the 
 neck, and descending like a frock down to the knees. These 
 were of a yellow color, embroidered with a scarlet cross, and
 
 168 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 well garnished with figures of devils and flames of fire, 
 which, typical of the heretic's destiny hereafter, served to 
 make him more odious in the eyes of the superstitious multi- 
 tude. The greater part of the sufferers were condemned to be 
 reconciled, the manifold meanings of which soft phrase have 
 been already explained. Those who were to be relaxed, as it 
 was called, were delivered over, as impenitent heretics, to the 
 secular arm, in order to expiate their offense by the most 
 painful of deaths, with the consciousness, still more painful, 
 that they were to leave behind them names branded with in- 
 famy, and families involved in irretrievable ruin. 
 
 It is remarkable that a scheme so monstrous as that of 
 the Inquisition, presenting the most effectual barrier, prob- 
 ably, that was ever opposed to the progress of knowledge, 
 should have been revived at the close of the fifteenth century, 
 when the light of civilization was rapidly advancing over 
 every part of Europe. It is more remarkable that it should 
 have occurred in Spain, at this time under a government 
 which had displayed great religious independence on more 
 than one occasion, and which had paid uniform regard to the 
 rights of its subjects, and pursued a generous policy in refer- 
 ence to their intellectual culture. Where, we are tempted 
 to ask, when we behold the persecution of an innocent, in- 
 dustrious people for the crime of adhesion to the faith of 
 their ancestors, where was the charity which led the old 
 Castilian to reverence valor and virtue in an infidel, though 
 an enemy? Where the chivalrous self-devotion which 
 led an Aragonese monarch, three centuries before, to give 
 away his life, in defense of the persecuted sectaries of Pro- 
 vence? Where the independent spirit which prompted the 
 Castilian nobles, during the very last reign, to reject with 
 scorn the proposed interference of the pope himself, in 
 their concerns, that they were now reduced to bow their 
 necks to a few frantic priests, the members of an order, 
 which, in Spain at least, was quite as conspicuous for igno- 
 rance as intolerance? True, indeed, the Castilians, and the 
 Aragonese subsequently still more, gave such evidence of 
 their aversion to the institution that it can hardly be believed 
 the clergy would have succeeded in fastening it upon them, 
 had they not availed themselves of the popular prejudices 
 against the Jews. Providence, however, permitted that the
 
 INQUISITION UNDER FERDINAND AND ISABELLA. 161> 
 
 sufferings, thus heaped on the heads of this unfortunate peo- 
 ple, should be requited in full measure to the nation that in- 
 flicted them. The fires of the Inquisition, which were lighted 
 exclusively for the Jews, were destined eventually to con- 
 sume their oppressors. They were still more deeply avenged 
 in the moral influence of this tribunal, which, eating like a 
 pestilent canker into the heart of the monarchy, at the very 
 time when it was exhibiting a most goodly promise, left it at 
 length a bare and sapless trunk. 
 
 Notwithstanding the persecutions under Torquemada were 
 confined almost wholly to the Jews, his activity was such as 
 to furnish abundant precedent, in regard to forms of pro- 
 ceeding, for his successors; if, indeed, the word forms may 
 be applied to the conduct of trials so summary that the tribu- 
 nal of Toledo alone, under the superintendence of two in- 
 quisitors, disposed of three thousand three hundred and 
 twenty-seven processes in little more than a year. The num- 
 ber of convicts was greatly swelled by the blunders of the 
 Dominican monks, who acted as qualificators, or interpreters 
 of what constituted heresy, and whose ignorance led them 
 frequently to condemn as heterodox propositions actually 
 derived from the fathers of the church. The prisoners for 
 life, alone, became so numerous that it was necessary to 
 assJgn them their own houses as the places of their incar- 
 ceration. 
 
 The data for an accurate calculation of the number of 
 victims sacrificed by the Inquisition during this reign are 
 not very satisfactory. From such as exist, however, Llorente 
 has been led to the most frightful results. He computes that, 
 during the eighteen years of Torquemada's ministry, there 
 were no less than 10,220 burned, 6,860 condemned, and 
 burned in effigy as absent or dead, and 97,321 reconciled by 
 various other penances, affording an average of more than 
 6,000 convicted persons annually. In this enormous sum of 
 human misery is not included the multitude of orphans, who, 
 from the confiscation of their paternal inheritance, were 
 turned over to indigence and vice. Many of the reconciled 
 were afterwards sentenced as relapsed : and the curate of Los 
 Palacios expresses the charitable wish that " the whole ac- 
 cursed race of Jews, male and female, of twenty years of age 
 and upwards, might be purified with fire and fagot ! "
 
 170 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 The vast apparatus of the Inquisition involved so heavy an 
 expenditure that a very small sum, comparatively, found its 
 way into the exchequer to counterbalance the great detriment 
 resulting to the state from the sacrifice of the most active 
 and skillful part of its population. All temporal interests, 
 however, were held light in comparison with the purgation 
 of the land from heresy ; and such augmentations as the 
 revenue did receive, we are assured, were conscientiously 
 devoted to pious purposes and the Moorish war ! 
 
 The Roman see, during all this time, conducting itself 
 with its usual duplicity, contrived to make a gainful traffic 
 by the sale of dispensations from the penalties incurred by 
 such as fell under the ban of the Inquisition, provided they 
 were rich enough to pay for them, and afterwards revoking 
 them, at the instance of the Castilian court. Meanwhile, 
 the odium, excited by the unsparing rigor of Torquemada, 
 raised up so many accusations against him that he was thrice 
 compelled to send an agent to Rome to defend his cause 
 before the pontiff, until, at length, Alexander VI, in 1494, 
 moved by these reiterated complaints, appointed four coad- 
 jutors, out of a pretended regard to the infirmities of his 
 age, to share with him the burdens of his office. 
 
 Protestantism in Spain. 
 
 Prescott's Philip the Second. 
 
 This is the last of Prescott's historical works. He did not 
 live to complete it. But in none do the celebrated author's 
 powers show forth with more brilliancy than in this History of 
 Philip the Second. It had justly been styled, "A monument of 
 thorough study and research, of tolerant and dispassionate judg- 
 ment, and a model of skill in narration." 
 
 Prescott's noble soul was filled with a sad indignation as 
 he depicted the fearful cruelty and the inhuman, fiendish de- 
 light with which the Roman Catholic Church persecuted, tor- 
 tured, and put to death men, women, and even children whose 
 only offense was that they had read the Bible, and had learned 
 to know that Savior aright of whom that church had displayed 
 to them a frightful caricature only. And who could read these 
 narratives of pious sufferers without being filled with an utter 
 contempt for the religious claims of men who boasted of being
 
 PROTESTANTISM IN SPAIN. 171 
 
 the servants of God, but who so conducted themselves that we 
 feel constrained to believe them to have been the instruments 
 of fiends. 
 
 Philip had not been many days in Valladolid when his 
 presence was celebrated by one of those exhibitions which, 
 unhappily for Spain, may be called national. This was an 
 auto de fe, not, however, as formerly, of Jews and Moors, but 
 of Spanish Protestants. The Reformation had been silently, 
 but not slowly, advancing in the Peninsula; and intelligence 
 of this, as we have already seen, was one cause of Philip's 
 abrupt departure from the Netherlands. The brief but dis- 
 astrous attempt at a religious revolution in Spain is an event 
 of too much importance to be passed over in silence by the 
 historian. 
 
 Notwithstanding the remote position of Spain, under the 
 imperial scepter of Charles she was brought too closely into 
 contact with the other states of Europe not to feel the shock 
 of the great religious reform which was shaking those states 
 to their foundations. Her most intimate relations, indeed, 
 were with those very countries in which the seeds of the 
 Reformation were first planted. It was no. uncommon thing 
 for Spaniards, in the sixteenth century, to be indebted for 
 some portion of their instruction to German universities. 
 Men of learning, who accompanied the emperor, became fa- 
 miliar with the religious doctrines so widely circulated in 
 Germany and Flanders. The troops gathered the same doc- 
 trines from the Lutheran soldiers who occasionally served 
 with them under the imperial banners. These opinions, crude 
 for the most part as they were, they brought back to their 
 own country; and a curiosity was roused which prepared 
 the mind for the reception of the great truths which were 
 quickening the other nations of Europe. Men of higher 
 education, on their return to Spain, found the means of dis- 
 seminating these truths. Secret societies were established ; 
 meetings were held; and, with the same secrecy as in the 
 days of the early Christians, the Gospel was preached and 
 explained to the growing congregation of the faithful. The 
 greatest difficulty was the want of books. The enterprise of 
 a few self-devoted proselytes at length overcame this diffi- 
 culty. 
 
 A Castilian version of the Bible had been printed in
 
 172 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 Germany. Various Protestant publications, whether origi- 
 nating in the Castilian or translated into that language, ap- 
 peared in the same country. A copy now and then, in the 
 possession of some private individual, had found its way, 
 without detection, across the Pyrenees. These instances 
 were rare, when a Spaniard named Juan Hernandez, resident 
 in Geneva, where he followed the business of a corrector of 
 the press, undertook, from no other motive but zeal for the 
 truth, to introduce a larger supply of the forbidden fruit into 
 his native land. 
 
 With great adroitness, he evaded the vigilance of the 
 custom-house officers and the more vigilant spies of the In- 
 quisition, and in the end succeeded in landing two large casks 
 filled with prohibited works, which were quickly distributed 
 among the members of the infant church. Other intrepid 
 converts followed the example of Hernandez, and with simi- 
 lar success, so that, with the aid of books and spiritual 
 teachers, the number of the faithful multiplied daily through- 
 out the country. Among this number was a much larger 
 proportion, it was observed, of persons of rank and education 
 than is usually found in like cases, owing doubtless to the 
 circumstance that it was this class of persons who had most 
 frequented the countries where the Lutheran doctrines were 
 taught. Thus the Reformed Church grew and prospered, 
 not indeed as it had prospered in the freer atmospheres of 
 Germany and Britain, but as well as it could possibly do 
 under the blighting influence of the Inquisition, like some 
 tender plant, which, nurtured in the shade, waits only for 
 a more genial season for its full expansion. That season was 
 not in reserve for it in Spain. 
 
 It may seem strange that the spread of the Reformed re- 
 ligion should so long have escaped the detection of the agents 
 of the Holy Office. Yet it is certain that the first notice 
 which the Spanish inquisitors received of the fact was from 
 their brethren abroad. Some ecclesiastics in the train of 
 Philip, suspecting the heresy of several of their own country- 
 men in the Netherlands, had them seized and sent to Spain 
 to be examined by the Inquisition. On a closer investigation, 
 it was found that a correspondence had long been maintained 
 between these persons and their countrymen, of a similar
 
 PROTESTANTISM IN SPAIN. 173 
 
 persuasion with themselves, at home. Thus the existence, 
 though not the extent, of the Spanish Reformation was 
 made known. 
 
 No sooner was the alarm sounded than Paul IV, quick 
 to follow up the scent of heresy in any quarter of his pontif- 
 ical dominions, issued a brief, in February, 1558, addressed 
 to the Spanish inquisitor-general. In this brief, his Holiness 
 enjoins it on the head of the tribunal to spare no efforts to 
 detect and exterminate the growing evil; and he empowers 
 that functionary to arraign and bring to condign punishment 
 all suspected of heresy, of whatever rank or profession, 
 whether bishops, or archbishops, nobles, kings, or emperors. 
 Paul IV was fond of contemplating himself as seated in the 
 chair of the Innocents and the Gregories, and like them 
 setting his pontifical foot on the necks of princes. His 
 natural arrogance was probably not diminished by the con- 
 cessions which Philip II had thought proper to make to him 
 at the close of the Roman war. 
 
 Philip, far from taking umbrage at the swelling tone of 
 this apostolic mandate, followed it up, in the same year, by a 
 monstrous edict, borrowed from one in the Netherlands, 
 which condemned all who bought, sold, or read prohibited 
 works to be burned alive. 
 
 In the following January, Paul, to give greater efficacy to 
 this edict, published another bull, in which he commanded 
 all confessors, under pain of excommunication, to enjoin on 
 their penitents to inform against all persons, however nearly 
 allied to them, who might be guilty of such practices. To 
 quicken the zeal of the informer, Philip, on his part, revived 
 a law fallen somewhat into disuse, by which the accuser was 
 to receive one fourth of the confiscated property of the con- 
 victed party. And, finally, a third bull from Paul allowed 
 the inquisitors to withhold a pardon from the recanting 
 heretic if any doubt existed of his sincerity, thus placing the 
 life as well as fortune of the unhappy prisoner entirely at 
 the mercy of judges who had an obvious interest in finding 
 him guilty. In this way the pope and the king continued 
 to play into each other's hands, and while his Holiness art- 
 fully spread the toils, the king devised the means for driving 
 the quarry into them. 
 
 Fortunately for these plans, the Inquisition was at this
 
 174 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 time under the direction of a man peculiarly fitted to execute 
 them. This was Fernando Valdes, cardinal-archbishop of Se- 
 ville, a person of a hard, inexorable nature, and possessed of 
 as large a measure of fanaticism as ever fell to a grand in- 
 quisitor since the days of Torquemada. Valdes readily availed 
 himself of the terrible machinery placed under his control. 
 Careful not to alarm the suspected parties, his approaches 
 were slow and stealthy. He was the chief of a tribunal 
 which sat in darkness and which dealt by invisible agents. 
 He worked long and silently under ground before firing the 
 mine which was to bury his enemies in a general ruin. 
 
 His spies were everywhere abroad, mingling with the sus- 
 pected and insinuating themselves into their confidence. At 
 length, by the treachery of some, and by working on the 
 nervous apprehensions or the religious scruples of others, he 
 succeeded in detecting the lurking-places of the new heresy 
 and the extent of ground which it covered. This was much 
 larger than had been imagined, although the Reformation in 
 Spain seemed less formidable from the number of its prose- 
 lytes than from their character and position. Many of them 
 were ecclesiastics, especially intrusted with maintaining the 
 purity of the faith. The quarters in which the heretical 
 doctrines most prevailed were Aragon, which held an easy 
 communication with the Huguenots of France, and the 
 ancient cities of Seville and Valladolid, indebted less to any 
 local advantages than to the influence of a few eminent men 
 who had early embraced the faith of the Reformers. 
 
 At length, the preliminary information having been ob- 
 tained, the proscribed having been marked out, the plan of 
 attack settled, an order was given for the simultaneous arrest 
 of all persons suspected of heresy, throughout the kingdom. 
 It fell like a thunderbolt on the unhappy victims, who had 
 gone on with their secret associations, little suspecting the 
 ruin that hung over them. No resistance was attempted. 
 Men and women, churchmen and laymen, persons of all ranks 
 and professions, were hurried from their homes and lodged 
 in the secret chambers of the Inquisition. Yet these could 
 not furnish accommodations for the number, and many were 
 removed to the ordinary prisons, and even to convents and 
 private dwellings. In Seville alone eight hundred were ar- 
 rested on the first day. Fears were entertained of an at-
 
 PROTESTANTISM IN SPAIN. 175 
 
 tempt at rescue, and an additional guard was stationed over 
 the places of confinement. The inquisitors were in the con- 
 dition of a fisherman whose cast has been so successful that 
 the draught of fishes seems likely to prove too heavy for 
 his net. 
 
 The arrest of one party gradually led to the detection of 
 others. Dragged from his solitary dungeon before the 
 secret tribunal of the Inquisition, alone, without counsel to 
 aid or one friendly face to cheer him, without knowing the 
 name of his accuser, without being allowed to confront the 
 witnesses who were there to swear away his life, without 
 even a sight of his own process, except such garbled ex- 
 tracts as the wily judges thought fit to communicate, is it 
 strange that the unhappy victim, in his perplexity and dis- 
 tress, should have been drawn into disclosures fatal to his 
 associates and himself? If these disclosures were not to 
 the mind of his judges, they had only to try the efficacy of 
 the torture, the rack, the cord, and the pulley, until, when 
 every joint had been wrenched from its socket, the barbarous 
 tribunal was compelled to suspend, not terminate, the appli- 
 cation, from the inability of the sufferer to endure it. Such 
 were the dismal scenes enacted in the name of religion, and 
 by the ministers of religion, as well as of the Inquisition, 
 scenes to which few of those who had once witnessed them, 
 and escaped with life, dared ever to allude. For to reveal 
 the secrets of the Inquisition was death. 
 
 At the expiration of eighteen months from the period of 
 the first arrests, many of the trials had been concluded, the 
 doom of the prisoners was sealed, and it was thought time 
 that the prisoners should disgorge their superfluous inmates. 
 Valladolid was selected as the theater of the first auto de fe, 
 both from the importance of the capital and the presence of 
 the court, which would thus sanction and give greater dig- 
 nity to the celebration. This event took place in May, 1559. 
 The Regent Joanna, the young prince of Asturias, Don Car- 
 los, and the principal grandees of the court, were there to 
 witness the spectacle. By rendering the heir of the crown 
 thus early familiar with the tender mercies of the Holy Office, 
 it may have been intended to conciliate his favor to that in- 
 stitution. If such was the object, according to the report it
 
 176 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 signally failed, since the woeful spectacle left no other im- 
 pressions on the mind of the prince than those of indignation 
 and disgust. 
 
 The example of Valladolid was soon followed by autos 
 de fe in Granada, Toledo, Seville, Barcelona, in short, in 
 the twelve capitals in which tribunals of the Holy Office were 
 established. A second celebration at Valladolid was reserved 
 for the eighth of October in the same year, when it would 
 be graced by the presence of the sovereign himself. Indeed, 
 as several of the processes had been concluded some months 
 before this period, there is reason to believe that the sacri- 
 fice of more than one of the victims had been postponed in 
 order to give greater effect to the spectacle. 
 
 The auto de fe " act of faith " was the most imposing, 
 as it was the most awful, of the solemnities authorized by 
 the Roman Catholic Church. It was intended, somewhat 
 profanely, as has been intimated, to combine the pomp of 
 the Roman triumph with the terrors of the Day of Judgment. 
 It may remind one quite as much of those bloody festivals 
 prepared for the entertainment of the Caesars in the Coliseum. 
 The religious import of the auto de fe was intimated by the 
 circumstance of its being celebrated on a Sunday, or some 
 other holiday of the Church. An indulgence for forty days 
 was granted by his Holiness to all who should be present at 
 the spectacle, as if the appetite for witnessing the scenes of 
 human suffering required to be stimulated by a bounty, 
 that, too, in Spain, where the amusements were, and still are, 
 of the most sanguinary character. 
 
 The scene for this second auto de fe at Valladolid was 
 the great square in front of the church of St. Francis. At 
 one end a platform was raised, covered with rich carpeting, 
 on which were ranged the seats of the inquisitors, emblazoned 
 with the arms of the Holy Office. Near to this was the 
 royal gallery, a private entrance to which secured the in- 
 mates from molestation by the crowd. Opposite to this gal- 
 lery a large scaffold was erected, so as to be visible from 
 all parts of the arena, and was appropriated to the unhappy 
 martyrs who were to suffer in the auto. 
 
 At six in the morning all the bells in the capital began 
 to toll, and a solemn procession was seen to move from the 
 dismal fortress of the Inquisition. In the van marched a
 
 PROTESTANTISM IN SPAIN. 177 
 
 body of troops, to secure a free passage for the procession. 
 Then came the condemned, each attended by two familiars 
 of the Holy Office, and those who were to suffer at the stake 
 by two friars, in addition, exhorting the heretic to abjure 
 his errors. Those admitted to penitence wore a sable dress, 
 while the unfortunate martyr was enveloped in a loose sack 
 of yellow cloth, the son benito, with his head surmounted 
 by a cap of pasteboard of a conical form, which, together 
 with the cloak, was embroidered with figures of flames and 
 of devils fanning and feeding them, all emblematical of the 
 destiny of the heretic's soul in the world to come, as well as 
 of his body in the present. Then came the magistrates of 
 the city, the judges of the courts, the ecclesiastical orders, 
 and the nobles of the land, on horseback. These were fol- 
 lowed by the members of the dread tribunal, and the fiscal, 
 bearing a standard of crimson damask, on one side of which 
 were displayed the arms of the Inquisition, and on the other 
 the insignia of its founders, Sixtus the Fifth and Ferdi- 
 nand the Catholic. Next came a numerous train of familiars, 
 well mounted, among whom were many of the gentry of the 
 province, proud to act as the body-guard of the Holy Office. 
 The rear was brought up by an immense concourse of the 
 common people, stimulated on the present occasion, no doubt, 
 by the loyal desire to see their new sovereign, as well as by 
 the ambition to share in the triumphs of the auto de fe. The 
 number thus drawn together from the capital and the coun- 
 try, far exceeding what was usual on such occasions, is esti- 
 mated by one present at full two hundred thousand. 
 
 As the multitude defiled into the square, the inquisitors 
 took their place on the seats prepared for their reception. 
 The condemned were conducted to the scaffold, and the royal 
 station was occupied by Philip, with the different members 
 of his household. At his side sat his sister, the late regent, 
 his son, Don Carlos, his nephew, Alexander Farnese, sev- 
 eral foreign ambassadors, and the principal grandees and 
 higher ecclesiastics in attendance on the court. It was an 
 august assembly of the greatest and the proudest in the land. 
 But the most indifferent spectator who had a spark of hu- 
 manity in his bosom might have turned with feelings of 
 admiration from this array of worldly power to the poor 
 martyr, who, with no support but what he drew from within, 
 12
 
 178 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 was prepared to defy this power and to lay down his life in 
 vindication of the rights of conscience. Some there may 
 have been, in that large concourse, who shared in these sen- 
 timents. But their number was small indeed in comparison 
 with those who looked on the wretched victim as the enemy 
 of God, and his approaching sacrifice as the most glorious 
 triumph of the Cross. 
 
 The ceremonies began with a sermon, " the sermon of 
 the faith," by the bishop of Zamora. The subject of it may 
 well be guessed, from the occasion. It was no doubt plenti- 
 fully larded with texts of Scripture, and, unless the preacher 
 departed from the fashion of the time, with passages from 
 the heathen writers, however much out of place they may 
 seem in an orthodox discourse. 
 
 When the bishop had concluded, the grand inquisitor 
 administered an oath to the assembled multitude, who on 
 their knees solemnly swore to defend the Inquisition, to 
 maintain the purity of the faith, and to inform against any 
 one who should swerve from it. As Philip repeated an oath 
 of similar import, he suited the action to the word, and, 
 rising from his seat, drew his sword from its scabbard, as 
 if to announce himself the determined champion of the Holy 
 Office. In the earlier autos of the Moorish and Jewish 
 infidels so humiliating an oath had never been exacted from 
 the sovereign. 
 
 After this, the secretary of the tribunal read aloud an 
 instrument reciting the grounds for the conviction of the 
 prisoners, and the respective sentences pronounced against 
 them. Those who were to be admitted to penitence, each, as 
 his sentence was proclaimed, knelt down, and, with his hands 
 on the missal, solemnly abjured his errors, and was absolved 
 by the grand inquisitor. The absolution, however, was not 
 so entire as to relieve the offender from the penalty of his 
 transgressions in this world. Some were doomed to per- 
 petual imprisonment in the cells of the Inquisition, others to 
 lighter penances. All were doomed to the confiscation of 
 their property, a point of too great moment to the welfare 
 of the tribunal ever to be omitted. Besides this, in many cases 
 the offender, and, by a glaring perversion of justice, his im- 
 mediate descendants, were rendered forever ineligible to 
 public office of any kind, and their names branded with per-
 
 PROTESTANTISM IN SPAIN. 179 
 
 petual infamy. Thus blighted in fortune and in character, 
 they were said, in the soft language of the Inquisition, to 
 be reconciled. 
 
 As these unfortunate persons were remanded, under a 
 strong guard, to their prisons, all eyes were turned on the 
 little company of martyrs, who, clothed in the ignominious 
 garb of the son benito, stood awaiting the sentence of their 
 judges, with cords round their necks, and in their hands a 
 cross, or sometimes an inverted torch, typical of their own 
 speedy dissolution. The interest of the spectators was still 
 further excited, in the present instance, by the fact that 
 several of these victims were not only illustrious for their 
 rank, but yet more so for their talents and virtues. In their 
 haggard looks, their emaciated forms, and too often, alas! 
 their distorted limbs, it was easy to read the story of their 
 sufferings in their long imprisonment, for some of them had 
 been confined in the dark cells of the Inquisition much more 
 than a year. Yet their countenances, though haggard, far 
 from showing any sign of weakness or fear, were lighted up 
 with the glow of holy enthusiasm, as of men prepared to 
 seal their testimony with their blood. 
 
 When that part of the process showing the grounds of 
 their conviction had been read, the grand inquisitor consigned 
 them to the hands of the corregidor of the city, beseeching 
 him to deal with the prisoners in all kindness and mercy, a 
 honeyed but most hypocritical phrase, since no choice was 
 left to the civil magistrate but to execute the terrible sen- 
 tence of the law against heretics, the preparations for which 
 had been made by him a week before. 
 
 The whole number of convicts amounted to thirty, of 
 whom sixteen were reconciled, and the remainder relaxed 
 to the secular arm, in other words, turned over to the civil 
 magistrate for execution. There were few of those thus con- 
 demned who, when brought to the stake, did not so far 
 shrink from the dreadful doom that awaited them as to con- 
 sent to purchase a commutation of it by confession before 
 they died, in which case they were strangled by the garrote 
 before their bodies were thrown into the flames. 
 
 Of the present number there were only two whose con- 
 stancy triumphed to the last over the dread of suffering, and 
 who refused to purchase any mitigation of it by a compromise
 
 180 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 with conscience. The names of these martyrs should be en- 
 graven on the record of history. 
 
 One of them was Don Carlos de Seso, a noble Florentine, 
 who had stood high in the favor of Charles the Fifth. Being 
 united with a lady of rank in Castile, he removed to that 
 country and took up his residence in Valladolid. He had 
 become a convert to the Lutheran doctrines, which he first 
 communicated to his own family, and afterwards showed 
 equal zeal in propagating among the people of Valladolid 
 and its neighborhood. In short, there was no man to whose 
 untiring and intrepid labors the cause of the Reformed re- 
 ligion in Spain was more indebted. He was, of course, a 
 conspicuous mark for the Inquisition. 
 
 During the fifteen months in which he lay in its gloomy 
 cells, cut off from human sympathy and support, his con- 
 stancy remained unshaken. The night preceding his exe- 
 cution, when his sentence had been announced to him, De 
 Seso called for writing-materials. It was thought he designed 
 to propitiate his judges by a full confession of his errors. 
 But the confession he made was of another kind. He insisted 
 on the errors of the Romish Church, and avowed his unshaken 
 trust in the great truths of the Reformation. The document, 
 covering two sheets of paper, is pronounced by the secretary 
 of the Inquisition to be a composition equally remarkable for 
 its energy and precision. When led before the royal gallery, 
 on his way to the place of execution, De Seso pathetically 
 exclaimed to Philip, " Is it thus that you allow your inno- 
 cent subjects to be persecuted?" To which the king made 
 the memorable reply, " If it were my own son, I would fetch 
 the wood to burn him, were he such a wretch as thou art ! " 
 It was certainly a characteristic answer. 
 
 At the stake De Seso showed the same unshaken con- 
 stancy, bearing his testimony to the truth of the great cause 
 for which he gave up his life. As the flames crept slowly 
 around him, he called on the soldiers to heap up the fagots, 
 that his agonies might be sooner ended ; and his executioners, 
 indignant at the obstinacy the heroism of the martyr, 
 were not slow in obeying his commands. 
 
 The companion and fellow-sufferer of De Seso was Do- 
 mingo de Roxas, son of the marquis de Poza, an unhappy 
 noble, who had seen five of his family, including his eldest
 
 PROTESTANTISM IN SPAIN. 181 
 
 son, condemned to various humiliating penances by the In- 
 quisition for their heretical opinions. This one was now to 
 suffer death. De Roxas was a Dominican monk. It is sin- 
 gular that this order, from which the ministers of the Holy 
 Office were particularly taken, furnished many proselytes to 
 the Reformed religion. De Roxas, as was the usage with 
 ecclesiastics, was allowed to retain his sacerdotal habit until 
 his sentence had been read, when he was degraded from his 
 ecclesiastical rank, his vestments were stripped off one after 
 another, and the hideous dress of the son benito thrown over 
 him, amid the shouts and derision of the populace. Thus ap- 
 pareled, he made an attempt to address the spectators around 
 the scaffold; but no sooner did he begin to raise his voice 
 against the errors and cruelties of Rome than Philip indig- 
 nantly commanded him to be gagged. The gag was a piece 
 of cleft wood, which, forcibly compressing the tongue, had 
 the additional advantage of causing great pain while it 
 silenced the offender. Even when he was bound to the stake, 
 the gag, though contrary to custom, was suffered to remain 
 in the mouth of De Roxas, as if his enemies dreaded the ef- 
 fects of an eloquence that triumphed over the anguish of 
 death. 
 
 The place of execution the quemadero, the burning place, 
 as it was called was a spot selected for the purpose without 
 the walls of the city. Those who attended an auto de fe 
 were not, therefore, necessarily, as is commonly imagined, 
 spectators of the tragic scene that concluded it. The great 
 body of the people, and many of higher rank, no doubt, fol- 
 lowed to the place of execution. On this occasion there is 
 reason to think, from the language somewhat equivocal, 
 it is true of Philip's biographer, that the monarch chose to 
 testify his devotion to the Inquisition by witnessing in person 
 the appalling close of the drama, while his guards mingled 
 with the menials of the Holy Office and heaped up the fagots 
 round their victims. 
 
 Such was the cruel exhibition which, under the garb of a 
 religious festival, was thought the most fitting ceremonial for 
 welcoming the Catholic monarch to his dominions ! During 
 the whole time of its duration in the public square, from six 
 in the morning till two in the afternoon, no symptom of im- 
 patience was exhibited by the spectators, and, as may well
 
 182 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 be believed, no sign of sympathy for the sufferers. It would 
 be difficult to devise a better school for perverting the moral 
 sense and deadening the sensibilities of a nation. 
 
 Under the royal sanction, the work of persecution now 
 went forward more briskly than ever. No calling was too 
 sacred, no rank too high, to escape the shafts of the informer. 
 In the course of a few years, no less than nine bishops were 
 compelled to do humiliating penance in some form or other 
 for heterodox opinions. But the most illustrious victim of 
 the Inquisition was Bartolome Carranza, archbishop of To- 
 ledo. The primacy of Spain might be considered as the 
 post of the highest consideration in the Roman Catholic 
 Church after the papacy. The proceedings against this prel- 
 ate, on the whole, excited more interest throughout Chris- 
 tendom than any other case that came before the tribunal 
 of the Inquisition. 
 
 Carranza, who was of an ancient Castilian family, had 
 early entered a Dominican convent in the suburbs of Gua- 
 dalajara. His exemplary life, and his great parts and learn- 
 ing, recommended him to the favor of Charles the Fifth, who 
 appointed him confessor to his son Philip. The emperor 
 also sent him to the Council of Trent, where he made a great 
 impression by his eloquence, as well as by a tract which 
 he published against plurality of benefices, which, however, 
 excited no little disgust in many of his order. On Philip's 
 visit to England to marry Queen Mary, Carranza accom- 
 panied his master, and while in that country, he distin- 
 guished himself by the zeal and ability with which he con- 
 troverted the doctrines of the Protestants. The alacrity, 
 moreover, which he manifested in the work of persecution 
 made him generally odious under the name of the "black 
 friar," a name peculiarly appropriate, as it applied not less 
 to his swarthy complexion than to the garb of his order. 
 On Philip's return to Flanders, Carranza, who had twice re- 
 fused a miter, was raised not without strong disinclination 
 on his own part to the archiepiscopal see of Toledo. The 
 " nalo episcopari," in this instance, seems to have been sin- 
 cere. It would have been well for him if it had been ef- 
 fectual. Carranza's elevation to the primacy was the source 
 of all his troubles. 
 
 The hatred of theologians has passed into a proverb;
 
 PROTESTANTISM IN SPAIN. 183 
 
 and there would certainly seem to be no rancor surpassing 
 that of a Spanish ecclesiastic. Among the enemies raised 
 by Carranza's success, the most implacable was the grand 
 inquisitor, Valdes. The archbishop of Seville could ill brook 
 that a humble Dominican should be thus raised from the 
 cloister over the heads of the proud prelacy of Spain. With 
 unwearied pains, such as hate only could induce, he sought 
 out whatever could make against the orthodoxy of the new 
 prelate, whether in his writings or his conversation. Some 
 plausible ground was afforded for this from the fact that, 
 although Carranza, as his whole life had shown, was de- 
 voted to the Roman Catholic Church, yet his long residence 
 in Protestant countries and his familiarity with Protestant 
 works had given a coloring to his language, if not to his 
 opinions, which resembled that of the Reformers. Indeed, 
 Carranza seems to have been much of the same way of think- 
 ing with Pole, Contarini, Morone, and other illustrious Ro- 
 manists, whose liberal natures and wide range of study had 
 led them to sanction more than one of the Lutheran dogmas 
 which were subsequently proscribed by the Council of Trent. 
 One charge strongly urged against the primate was his as- 
 sent to the heretical doctrine of justification by faith. In 
 support of this, Father Regla, the confessor, as the reader 
 may remember, of Charles the Fifth, and a worthy coadjutor 
 of Valdes, quoted words of consolation employed by Car- 
 ranza, in his presence, at the death-bed of the emperor. 
 
 The exalted rank of the accused made it necessary for 
 his enemies to proceed with the greatest caution. Never 
 had the bloodhounds of the Inquisition been set on so noble 
 a quarry. Confident in his own authority, the prelate had 
 little reason for distrust. He could not ward off the blow, 
 for it was in an invisible arm stronger than his own that 
 was raised to smite him. On the twenty-second of August, 
 1559, the emissaries of the Holy Office entered the primate's 
 town of Torrelaguna. The doors of the episcopal palace were 
 thrown open to the ministers of the terrible tribunal. The 
 prelate was dragged from his bed at midnight, was hurried 
 into a coach, and, while the inhabitants were ordered not so 
 much as to present themselves at the windows, he was con- 
 ducted, under a strong guard, to the prisons of the Inqui- 
 sition at Valladolid. The arrest of such a person caused a
 
 184 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 great sensation throughout the country, but no attempt was 
 made at a rescue. 
 
 The primate would have appealed from the Holy Office to 
 the pope, as the only power competent to judge him. But he 
 was unwilling to give umbrage to Philip, who had told him 
 in any extremity to rely on him. The king, however, was 
 still in the Netherlands, where his mind had been preoccu- 
 pied, through the archbishop's enemies, with rumors of his 
 defection. And the mere imputation of heresy, in this dan- 
 gerous crisis, and especially in one whom he had so re- 
 cently raised to the highest post in the Spanish Church, was 
 enough not only to efface the recollection of past services 
 from the mind of Philip, but to turn his favor into aversion. 
 For two years Carranza was suffered to languish in confine- 
 ment, exposed to all the annoyances which the malice of his 
 enemies could devise. So completely was he dead to the 
 world that he knew nothing of a conflagration which con- 
 sumed more than four hundred of the principal houses in 
 Valladolid, till some years after the occurrence. 
 
 At length the Council of Trent, sharing the indignation 
 of the rest of Christendom at the archbishop's protracted 
 imprisonment, called on Philip to interpose in his behalf 
 and to remove the cause to another tribunal. But the king 
 gave little heed to the remonstrance, which the inquisitors 
 treated as a presumptuous interference with their authority. 
 
 In 1566, Pius the Fifth ascended the pontifical throne. 
 He was a man of austere morals and a most inflexible will. 
 A Dominican, like Carranza, he was greatly scandalized by 
 the treatment which the primate had received, and by the 
 shameful length to which his process had been protracted. 
 He at once sent his orders to Spain for the removal of the 
 grand inquisitor, Valdes, from office, summoning, at the same 
 time, the cause and the prisoner before his own tribunal. 
 The bold inquisitor, loath to lose his prey, would have defied 
 the power of Rome as he had done that of the Council of 
 Trent. Philip remonstrated; but Pius was firm, and men- 
 aced both king and inquisitor with excommunication. Philip 
 had no mind for a second collision with the papal court. 
 In imagination he already heard the thunders of the Vatican 
 rolling in the distance and threatening soon to break upon his 
 head. After a confinement of now more than seven years'
 
 PROTESTANTISM IN SPAIN. 185 
 
 duration, the archbishop was sent under a guard to Rome. 
 He was kindly received by the pontiff, and honorably lodged 
 in the castle of St. Angelo, in apartments formerly occupied 
 by the popes themselves. But he was still a prisoner. 
 
 Pius now set seriously about the examination of Car- 
 ranza's process. It was a tedious business, requiring his 
 Holiness to wade through an ocean of papers, while the prog- 
 ress of the suit was perpetually impeded by embarrassments 
 thrown in his way by the industrious malice of the inquisi- 
 tors. At the end of six years more, Pius was preparing 
 to give his judgment, which it was understood would be 
 favorable to Carranza, when, unhappily for the primate, the 
 pontiff died. 
 
 The Holy Office, stung by the prospect of its failure, now 
 strained every nerve to influence the mind of the new pope, 
 Gregory the Thirteenth, to a contrary decision. New tes- 
 timony was collected, new glosses were put on the primate's 
 text, and the sanction of the most learned Spanish theologians 
 was brought in support of them. At length, at the end of 
 three years further, the Holy Father announced his purpose 
 of giving his final decision. It was done with great circum- 
 stance. The pope was seated on his pontifical throne, sur- 
 rounded by all his cardinals, prelates, and functionaries of 
 the apostolic chamber. Before this august assembly the arch- 
 bishop presented himself unsupported and alone, while no one 
 ventured to salute him. His head was bare. His once robust 
 form was bent by infirmity more than by years ; and his 
 care-worn features told of that sickness which arises from 
 hope deferred. He knelt down at some distance from the 
 pope, and in this humble attitude received his sentence. 
 
 He was declared to have imbibed the pernicious doctrines 
 of Luther. The decree of the Inquisition prohibiting the 
 use of his catechism was confirmed. He was to abjure six- 
 teen propositions found in his writings ; was suspended from 
 the exercise of his episcopal functions for five years, during 
 which time he was to be confined in a convent of his order 
 at Orvieto ; and, finally, he was required to visit seven of 
 the principal churches in Rome and perform mass there by 
 way of penance. 
 
 This was the end of eighteen years of doubt, anxiety, 
 and imprisonment. The tears streamed down the face of the
 
 186 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 unhappy man as he listened to the sentence; but he bowed in 
 silent submission to the will of his superior. The very next 
 day he began his work of penance. But nature could go no 
 further; and on the second of May, only sixteen days after 
 his sentence had been pronounced, Carranza died of a broken 
 heart. The triumph of the Inquisition was complete. 
 
 Oliver Cromwell. 
 
 Von Ranke's History of England. 
 
 Leopold Von Ranke is a prince among historians. Every- 
 thing from his pen ranks among the best that the world has in 
 historical literature. His clearness of judgment and his fine 
 discrimination, combined with his patience in original research, 
 and his amazing power of application, have produced works which 
 will be read with delight and admiration as long as men have a 
 taste for genuine and truthful representation of the past. The 
 estimate of the character of Cromwell which Von Ranke gives 
 us in the following paragraphs is worthy of attentive perusal, and 
 should stimulate interest in the events which caused Cromwell to 
 rise, and in the conditions which succeeded his dictatorship. 
 
 Nothing is more misleading than to search for the psy- 
 chological causes connected with the death of great men, and 
 to attribute to them a decisive influence. One of Cromwell's 
 confidential attendants ventures to assert that the attempt 
 to carry on an unparliamentary government had exhausted 
 his vital powers. And certain it is that the failure of his 
 plans soured and disturbed him. In his own family circle, 
 from which he used never to be absent at breakfast and 
 dinner, for he was an excellent father, he was latterly never 
 seen for weeks together. The discovery of constantly re- 
 newed attempts upon his life filled him with disquiet. It is 
 said that he took opium, which could not fail to increase 
 his agitation. To this was added the illness and death of 
 his favorite daughter, Lady Claypole, whose last ravings were 
 of the religious and political controversies which harassed 
 her father the right of the King, the blood that had been 
 shed, the revenge to come. 
 
 The Independent ministers again found access to him. 
 When his growing indisposition was succeeded by fever, and 
 
 '
 
 OLIVER CROMWELL. 187 
 
 assumed a dangerous character, they still assured him that 
 he would yet live, for God had need of him. Meantime he 
 grew worse and worse. We all know how the mental feel- 
 ings and the bodily organs react upon each other. Cromwell 
 suffered from excessive fullness of the brain and an internal 
 corruption of the bile. He attempted to check the disease by 
 a panacea, which gave him some relief, and brought him 
 back from Hampton Court to Westminster, to the palace 
 of the old kings at Whitehall. There he died immediately 
 on the 3d of September, the anniversary of his victories of 
 Dunbar and Worcester, which had gained him this lodging. 
 The people declared that he was snatched away amid the 
 tumult of a fearful storm, a proof that he was in league with 
 Satanic powers. Others saw in it the sympathy of nature 
 with the death of the first man in the world. But gales and 
 storms follow their own laws in reality, the storm had 
 raged the night before. It was not till the afternoon that 
 Cromwell died. But this belief was not confined to the com- 
 mon people. The next general execrated Cromwell as a 
 monster of wickedness, while posterity has pronounced him 
 one of the greatest of the human race. 
 
 To him was granted the marvelous distinction of breaking 
 through the charmed circle which among the European na- 
 tions hems in the private man. Invested with sovereign 
 authority, and needing no higher sanction, for he was not 
 compelled, like Richelieu, to convince his king by argument, 
 or to cry into cabinet intrigues, he forced his way into the 
 history of the world. The king, who reckoned a hundred 
 ancestors in Scotland, and held the throne of England by 
 that hereditary right, on which most other states rested, was 
 overthrown mainly by the armed force which he created, and 
 was then succeeded by him. 
 
 Yet Cromwell had the self-restraint to refuse the crown 
 itself; that which he was, the general of the victorious army, 
 invested with the highest civil authority, that he resolved to 
 remain. 
 
 For when once Parliament had stripped the monarchy 
 of the military authority, the army displayed a tendency to 
 submit no longer even to Parliament. The civil authority 
 became dependent upon the military. Cromwell took it in 
 hand, and resolved to uphold it against all opposition.
 
 188 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 . 
 
 Above all, he was forced to suppress those institutions which 
 were most nearly allied with the old order of things. The 
 aristocracy or the episcopacy would not be suffered to exist 
 any more than the monarchy itself. Political and religious 
 opposition^ to all these elements were for Cromwell the end 
 of his existence. In this he discerned the welfare of the 
 country, the advancement of religion and morality, but also 
 his own justification, if in promoting his own cause he went 
 so far as to resist those opponents who sprang from the very 
 heart of his party. He deemed it essential to bring all the 
 active forces in the country into obedience to his will. Thus 
 it was that he established a power which has no parallel and 
 no appropriate name. It is true that the noble sentiment 
 which flowed from his lips were also the levers of his power, 
 and he did not allow them to interfere with it; but no less 
 true is it that the supreme authority in itself was not his 
 aim. It was to aid him in realizing those ideas of religious 
 liberty, and of civil order and national independence which 
 filled his whole soul. These ideas he regarded as not merely 
 satisfactory to himself, but as actually and objectively nec- 
 essary. Cromwell's was in fact a nature of deep impulses, 
 restless originality, and wide comprehensiveness, at once 
 slow and impatient, trustworthy and faithless, destructive 
 and conservative, ever pressing on to the untrodden way in 
 front; before it all obstacles must give way or be crushed. 
 
 If we ask what of Cromwell's work survived him, we shall 
 not find the answer in particular institutions of the state 
 and the constitution. We are never certain whether he con- 
 templated the continuance of the power which he possessed 
 himself: neither his House of Lords nor his Commons was 
 destined to endure; nor yet the army of which he was the 
 founder, nor the separatist movements with which he started. 
 Time has swept all this away. Yet he exercised, nevertheless, 
 an influence rich in important results. 
 
 We have seen how the germs of the great struggle are to 
 be found in the historical and natural conditions of the three 
 countries of Britain, and we have traced the part played by 
 the republican system in subjecting to England the two 
 other members of the British Commonwealth. But it was 
 Cromwell's victories which made this possible. His rise was 
 associated from the first with a genuinely English theory,
 
 OLIVER CROMWELL. 189 
 
 opposed equally to the encroachments of the Scots and to 
 Irish independence. He won a place for it by force of arms, 
 and then first, irregularly enough it is true, admitted the 
 Irish and Scottish representatives into the English Parlia- 
 ment. We can scarcely believe that a parliamentary gov- 
 ernment of the three kingdoms was possible at the time. 
 The course of events tended rather toward a military mon- 
 archy. It is Cromwell's chief merit to have ruled the 
 British kingdom for a succession of years on a uniform prin- 
 ciple, and to have united their forces in common efforts. 
 It is true that this was not the final award of history ; things 
 were yet to arrange themselves in a very different fashion. 
 But it was necessary, perhaps, that the main outlines should 
 be shaped by the absolute authority of a single will, in order 
 that in the future a free life might develop within them. 
 But for the general history of Europe nothing is of more 
 importance than the fact that Cromwell directed the energies 
 of England against the Spanish monarchy. It was the idea 
 which was most peculiarly his own ; the Commonwealth 
 would hardly have done it. We are not considering the po- 
 litical value of this policy, against which there is much to be 
 said; it is only with its results that we are concerned. These 
 consisted in the fact that the European system which had 
 grown up out of the dynastic influence of the Burgundo- 
 Austrian house, and had since been dominant for nearly two 
 centuries, was driven out of the field and forced to open a 
 new path for itself. To the English people itself, and es- 
 pecially to their navy, an important part was thus at once 
 allotted. Cromwell did not create the English navy. On 
 the contrary, the views of its chiefs were hostile to him; 
 but he gave it its strongest impulse. We have seen how 
 vigorously it rose to power in all parts of the world. The 
 coasts of Europe toward the Atlantic and Mediterranean 
 especially felt the weight of the English arms. The idea 
 was more than once suggested of effecting settlements on 
 the Italian and even on the German coasts. Such a settlement 
 was actually gained in the Netherlands, and was to be gradu- 
 ally enlarged. It was said that Crnmwpll rarrfafl the key of 
 {he Continent at his girdle. Holland was compelled, how- 
 ever reluctantly, to follow the impulse given her by England. 
 Portugal yielded in order to preserve her own existence.
 
 190 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 England could calmly await any future complications which 
 might arise on the Continent. 
 
 So far as home government was concerned, Cromwell pos- 
 sessed two qualities very opposite in themselves, yet sup- 
 plementing each other: a certain pliancy in matters of prin- 
 ciple and great firmness in the exercise of authority. Had 
 he allowed the tendencies of the separatists and the demo- 
 cratic zeal of the army, in conjunction with which he arose 
 to power, to run their course unchecked, everything must 
 have been plunged in chaotic confusion, and the existence of 
 the new state would have been impossible. Utterly opposite 
 as he was to King Charles in disposition and character, 
 and in the general bent of his mind, yet Cromwell exercised 
 a very similar influence upon the English constitution. The 
 king upheld the idea of the English Church : in defense of 
 this he died. Cromwell was the champion of civil law and 
 personal property. He broke with his party when it attacked 
 these fundamental principles of society and of the state. 
 It was of the most lasting importance for England that he 
 did this without fettering himself with the idea of the kingly 
 power, and relying simply on the necessity of the kings. 
 But it was beyond his power thus to consolidate a tolerably 
 durable constitution. His was at best but a de facto authority, 
 depending for its existence on the force of arms and his own 
 personal character. Such as it was, it was felt to be an op- 
 pressive burden, at home no less by those who longed for a 
 return to the old legitimate forms than by his own party, 
 whom he excluded from all share in public authority; abroad 
 by those who feared him, and by those who were his allies. 
 In Amsterdam this feeling was grotesquely enough expressed. 
 When the news was received of Cromwell's death, there was 
 a momentary cessation of business. People were seen to 
 dance in the streets, crying, " The devil is dead ! " And so 
 in London the mob were heard to utter curses when Richard 
 Cromwell, Oliver's son, was proclaimed Protector.
 
 THE DEFEAT OF THE SPANISH ARMADA. 191 
 
 The Defeat of the Spanish Armada. 
 
 SIR E. C. CREASY. 
 
 This is an account how an enterprise undertaken by a Catholic 
 King, encouraged and blessed by the Pope, against Protestant 
 England, ended in failure and disaster. 
 
 On the afternoon of July 19, 1588, a group of English 
 captains was collected at the bowling green on the Hoe, at 
 Plymouth, whose equals have never before or since been 
 brought together, even at that favorite mustering place of 
 the heroes of the British navy. There was Sir Francis 
 Drake, the first English circumnavigator of the globe, the 
 terror of every Spanish coast in the Old World and the New ; 
 there was Sir John Hawkins, the rough veteran of many a 
 daring voyage on the African and the American seas and 
 of many a desperate battle; there was Martin Frobisher, one 
 of the earliest explorers of the Arctic seas in search of the 
 northwest passage. 
 
 There was the high admiral of England, Lord Howard 
 of Effingham, prodigal of all things in his country's cause, 
 and who had recently had the noble daring to refuse to 
 dismantle part of the fleet, though the Queen had sent him 
 orders to do so in consequence of an exaggerated report 
 that the enemy had been driven back and shattered by a 
 storm. Lord Howard whom contemporary writers describe 
 as being of a wise and noble courage, skillful in sea matters, 
 wary and provident, and of great esteem among sailors re- 
 solved to risk his sovereign's anger, and to keep the ships 
 afloat at his own charge, rather than that England should run 
 the peril of losing their protection. 
 
 Another of our Elizabethan sea-kings, Sir Walter Raleigh, 
 was at that time commissioned to raise and equip the land 
 forces of Cornwall ; but we may well believe that he must have 
 availed himself of the opportunity of consulting with the 
 Lord Admiral and the other high officers, which was offered 
 by the English fleet putting into Plymouth ; and we may look 
 on Raleigh as one of the group that was assembled at the 
 bowling green on the Hoe. 
 
 Many other brave men and skillful mariners, besides the
 
 192 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 chiefs whose names have been mentioned, were there, en- 
 joying with true sailor-like merriment their temporary re- 
 laxation from duty. In the harbor lay the English fleet with 
 which they had just returned from a cruise to Corunna in 
 search of information respecting the real condition and 
 movement of the hostile armada. Lord Howard had ascer- 
 tained that our enemies, though tempest-tossed, were still 
 formidably strong; and, fearing that part of their fleet 
 might make for England in his absence, he had hurried back 
 to the Devonshire coast. He resumed his station at Plymouth, 
 and waited there for certain tidings of the Spaniards' ap- 
 proach. 
 
 A match at bowls was being played, in which Drake and 
 other high officers of the fleet were engaged, when a small 
 armed vessel was seen running before the wind into Plymouth 
 harbor with all sails set. Her commander landed in haste 
 and eagerly sought the place where the English Lord Admiral 
 and his captains were standing. His name was Fleming; he 
 was the master of a Scotch privateer ; and he told the English 
 officers that he had that morning seen the Spanish Armada 
 off the Cornish coast. At this exciting information the 
 captains began to hurry down to the water, and there was 
 a shouting for the ships' boats; but Drake coolly checked 
 his comrades, and insisted that the match should be played 
 out. He said that there was plenty of time both to win the 
 game and beat the Spaniards. The best and bravest match 
 that ever was scored was resumed accordingly. Drake and 
 his friends aimed their last bowls with the same steady, 
 calculating coolness with which they were about to point 
 their guns. The winning cast was made; and then they 
 went on board and prepared for action, with their hearts as 
 light and their nerves as firm as they had been on the Hoe 
 bowling green. 
 
 Meanwhile the messengers and signals had been dispatched 
 fast and far through England to warn each town and village 
 that the enemy had come at last. In every seaport there was 
 instant making ready by land and by sea ; in every shire and 
 every city there was instant mustering of horse and man. 
 But England's best defense then, as ever, was in her fleet ; and, 
 after warping laboriously out of Plymouth harbor against 
 the wind, the Lord Admiral stood westward under easy sail,
 
 THE DEFEAT OF THE SPANISH ARMADA. 193 
 
 keeping an anxious lookout for the Armada, the approach 
 of which was soon announced by Cornish fisher-boats and 
 signals from the Cornish cliffs. 
 
 It is not easy, without some reflection and care, to com- 
 prehend the full extent of the peril which England then 
 ran from the power and the ambition of Spain, or to ap- 
 preciate the importance of that crisis in the history of the 
 world. Queen Elizabeth had found at her accession an 
 encumbered revenue, a divided people, and an unsuccessful 
 foreign war, in which the last remnant of our possessions in 
 France had been lost; she had also a formidable pretender 
 to her crown, whose interests were favored by all the Roman 
 Catholic powers. It is true that, during the years of her 
 reign which had passed away before the attempted invasion 
 of 1588, she had revived the commercial prosperity, the 
 national spirit, and the national loyalty of England. But 
 her resources to cope with the colossal power of Philip II 
 still seemed most scanty; and she had not a single foreign 
 ally, except the Dutch, who were themselves struggling hard, 
 and, as it seemed, hopelessly, to maintain their revolt against 
 Spain. 
 
 On the other hand, Philip II was absolute master of an 
 empire so superior to the other states of the world in extent, 
 in resources, and especially in military and naval forces as 
 to make the project of enlarging that empire into a universal 
 monarchy seem a perfectly feasible scheme; and Philip had 
 both the ambition to perform that project, and the resolution 
 to devote all his energies and all his means to its realization. 
 Since the downfall of the Roman Empire no such prepon- 
 derating power had existed in the world. During the medi- 
 eval centuries the chief European kingdoms were slowly 
 molding themselves out of the feudal chaos; and though the 
 wars with each other were numerous and desperate, and 
 several of their respective kings figured for a time as mighty 
 conquerors, none of them in those times acquired the con- 
 sistency and perfect organization which are requisite for 
 a long-sustained career of aggrandizement. After the con- 
 solidation of the great kingdoms they for some time kept each 
 other in mutual check. 
 
 During the first half of the sixteenth century the bal- 
 ancing system was successfully practiced by European states- 
 
 13
 
 194 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 men. But when Philip II reigned, France had become so 
 miserably weak through her civil wars that he had nothing 
 to dread from the rival state which had so long curbed his 
 father, the Emperor Charles V. In Germany, Italy, and 
 Poland he had either zealous friends and dependents or weak 
 and divided enemies. Against the Turks he had gained great 
 and glorious successes; and he might look round the Con- 
 tinent of Europe without discerning a single antagonist of 
 whom he could stand in awe. Spain, when he acceded to the 
 throne, was at the zenith of her power. 
 
 The hardihood and spirit which the Aragonese, the Cas- 
 tilians, and the other nations of the peninsula had acquired 
 during centuries of free institutions and successful war 
 against the Moors had not yet become obliterated. Charles V 
 had, indeed, destroyed the liberties of Spain; but that had 
 been done too recently for its full evil to be felt in Philip's 
 time. A people cannot be debased in a single generation; 
 and the Spaniards under Charles V and Philip II proved 
 the truth of the remark that no nation is ever so formidable 
 to its neighbors, for a time, as a nation which, after being 
 trained up in self-government, passes suddenly under a 
 despotic ruler. The energy of democratic institutions sur- 
 vives for a few generations, and to it are superadded the 
 decision and certainty which are the attributes of govern- 
 ment when all its powers are directed by a single mind. 
 It is true that this preternatural vigor is short-lived: na- 
 tional corruption and debasement gradually follow the loss 
 of the national liberties; but there is an interval before 
 their workings are felt, and in that interval the most am- 
 bitious schemes of foreign conquest are often successfully 
 undertaken. 
 
 Philip had also the advantage of finding himself at the 
 head of a large standing army in a perfect state of disci- 
 pline and equipment, in an age when, except for some few in- 
 significant corps, standing armies were unknown in Chris- 
 tendom. The renown of the Spanish troops was justly high, 
 and the infantry in particular was considered the best in 
 the world. His fleet, also, was far more numerous and 
 better appointed than that of any other European power; 
 and both his soldiers and his sailors had the confidence in
 
 THE DEFEAT OF THE SPANISH ARMADA. 195 
 
 themselves and their commanders which a long career of 
 successful warfare alone can create. 
 
 Besides the Spanish crown, Philip succeeded to the 
 kingdom of Naples and Sicily, the duchy of Milan, Franche- 
 Comte, and the Netherlands. In Africa he possessed Tunis, 
 Oran, the Cape Verde and the Canary Islands; and in Asia, 
 the Philippine and Sunda Islands and a part of the Mo- 
 luccas. Beyond the Atlantic he was lord of the most splendid 
 portions of the New World, which Columbus found "for 
 Castile and Leon." The empires of Peru and Mexico, New 
 Spain, and Chile, with their abundant mines of the precious 
 metals, Espanola and Cuba, and many other of the American 
 islands were provinces of the sovereign of Spain. 
 
 Whatever diminution the Spanish empire might have 
 sustained in the Netherlands seemed to be more than com- 
 pensated by the acquisition of Portugal, which Philip had 
 completely conquered in 1580. Not only that ancient kingdom 
 itself, but all the fruits of the maritime enterprises of the 
 Portuguese had fallen into Philip's hands. All the Portu- 
 guese colonies in America, Africa, and the East Indies ac- 
 knowledged the sovereignty of the King of Spain, who thus 
 not only united the whole Iberian peninsula under his single 
 scepter, but had acquired a transmarine empire little inferior 
 in wealth and extent to that which he had inherited at his 
 accession. The splendid victory which his fleet, in conjunc- 
 tion with the papal and Venetian galleys, had gained at 
 Lepanto over the Turks, had deservedly exalted the fame of 
 the Spanish marine throughout Christendom; and when 
 Philip had reigned thirty-five years, the vigor of his empire 
 seemed unbroken, and the glory of the Spanish arms had in- 
 creased, and was increasing throughout the world. 
 
 One nation only had been his active, his persevering, and 
 his successful foe. England had encouraged his revolted 
 subjects in Flanders against him, and given them the aid, 
 in men and money, without which they must soon have 
 been humbled in the dust. English ships had plundered 
 his colonies, had defied his supremacy in the New World 
 as well as the Old ; they had inflicted ignominious defeats on 
 his squadrons; they had captured his cities and burned his 
 arsenals on the very coasts of Spain. The English had made 
 Philip himself the object of personal insult. He was held
 
 196 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 up to ridicule in their stage plays and masks, and these 
 scoffs at the man had as is not unusual in such cases ex- 
 cited the anger of the absolute King even more vehemently 
 than the injuries inflicted on his power. Personal as well 
 as political revenge urged him to attack England. Were 
 she once subdued, the Dutch must submit; France could not 
 cope with him; the empire would not oppose him; and uni- 
 versal dominion seemed sure to be the result of the con- 
 quest of that malignant island. 
 
 There was yet another and a stronger feeling which armed 
 King Philip against England. He was one of the sincerest 
 and one of the sternest bigots of his age. He looked on him- 
 self, and was looked on by others, as the appointed champion 
 to extirpate heresy and reestablish the papal power throughout 
 Europe. 
 
 A powerful reaction against Protestantism had taken 
 place since the commencement of the second half of the 
 i6th century, and he looked on himself as destined to com- 
 plete it. The reformed doctrines had been thoroughly routed 
 out from Italy and Spain. Belgium, which had been pre- 
 viously half Protestant, had been reconquered both in al- 
 legiance and creed by Philip, and had become one of the 
 most Catholic countries in the world. Half Germany had 
 been won back to the old faith. In Savoy, in Switzerland, and 
 many other countries the progress of the counter-reformation 
 had been rapid and decisive. The Catholic League seemed 
 victorious in France. The Papal Court itself had shaken off 
 the supineness of recent centuries, and at the head of the 
 Jesuits and the other new ecclesiastical orders was displayed 
 a vigor and a boldness worthy of the days of Hildebrand 
 or Innocent III. 
 
 Throughout continental Europe the Protestants, discom- 
 fited and dismayed, looked to England as their protector and 
 refuge. England was the acknowledged central point of 
 Protestant power and policy ; and to conquer England was to 
 stab Protestantism to the very heart. Sixtus V, the then 
 reigning Pope, earnestly exhorted Philip to this enterprise. 
 And when the tidings reached Italy and Spain that the 
 Protestant Queen of England had put to death her Catholic 
 prisoner, Mary, Queen of Scots, the fury of the Vatican
 
 THE DEFEAT OF THE SPANISH ARMADA. 197 
 
 and Escurial knew no bounds. Elizabeth was denounced as 
 the murderous heretic, whose destruction was an instant 
 duty. 
 
 A formal treaty was concluded, in June, 1587, by which 
 the Pope bound himself to contribute a million of scudi to the 
 expenses of the war, the money to be paid as soon as the King 
 had actual possession of an English port. Philip, on his 
 part, strained the resources of his vast empire to the utmost. 
 The French Catholic chiefs eagerly cooperated with him. 
 In the seaports of the Mediterranean and along almost the 
 whole coast, from Gibraltar to Jutland, the preparation for 
 the great armament were urged forward with all the 
 earnestness of religious zeal as well as of angry ambition. 
 
 " Thus," says the German historian of the Popes, " thus 
 did the united powers of Italy and Spain, from which such 
 mighty influences had gone forth over the whole world, now 
 rouse themselves for an attack upon England ! The King 
 had already compiled, from the archives of Simancus, a 
 statement of the claims which he had to the throne of that 
 country on the extinction of the Stuart line; the most 
 brilliant prospects, especially that of the universal dominion 
 of the seas, were associated in his mind with this enter- 
 prise. Everything seemed to conspire to such an end the 
 predominancy of Catholicism in Germany, the renewed at- 
 tack upon the Huguenots in France, the attempt upon Ge- 
 neva, and the enterprise against England. At the same 
 moment a thoroughly Catholic prince, Sigismund III, as- 
 cended the throne of Poland, with the prospect also of future 
 succession to the throne of Sweden; but whenever any 
 principle or power, be it what it may, aims at unlimited su- 
 premacy in Europe, some vigorous resistance to it, having 
 its origin in the deepest springs of human nature, invariably 
 arises. Philip II had to encounter newly awakened powers, 
 graced by the vigor of youth and elevated by a sense of their 
 future destiny. 
 
 "The intrepid corsairs, who had rendered every sea in- 
 secure, now clustered round the coasts of their native island. 
 The Protestants in a body even the Puritans, although they 
 had been subjected to as severe oppression as the Catholics 
 rallied round their Queen, who now gave admirable proof
 
 198 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 of her masculine courage and her princely talent of winning 
 the affections and leading the minds and preserving the al- 
 legiance of men." 
 
 For upward of a year the Spanish preparation had been 
 actively and unremittingly urged forward. Negotiations were, 
 during this time, carried on at Ostend, in which various 
 pretexts were assigned by the Spanish commissioners for the 
 gathering together of such huge masses of shipping, and such 
 equipments of troops in all the seaports which their master 
 ruled. But Philip himself took little care to disguise his in- 
 tentions; nor could Elizabeth and her able ministers doubt 
 but that this island was the real object of the Spanish 
 armament. 
 
 The peril that was quietly foreseen was resolutely pro- 
 vided for. Circular letters from the Queen were sent round 
 to the lord lieutenants of the several counties requiring 
 them to " Call together the best sort of gentlemen under 
 their lieutenancy, and to declare unto them these great 
 preparations and arrogant threatenings now burst forth in 
 action upon the seas, where in every man's particular state, 
 in the highest degree, could be touched in respect of country, 
 liberty, wives, children, lands, lives, and which was spe- 
 cially to be regarded the profession of the true and sincere 
 religion of Christ, and to lay before them the infinite and 
 unspeakable miseries that would fall . out upon any such 
 change, which miseries were evidently seen by the fruits of 
 that hard and cruel government holden in countries not far 
 distant. 
 
 " We do look," said the Queen, " that the most part of 
 them should have, upon this instant extraordinary occasion, 
 a larger proportion of furniture, both for horsemen and 
 footmen, but especially horsemen, than have been certified 
 thereby to be in their best strength against any attempt, 
 or to be employed about our own person or otherwise. 
 Hereunto as we doubt not but by your good endeavors they 
 will be rather conformable; so also we assure ourselves that 
 Almighty God will so bless these their loyal hearts borne 
 toward us, their loving sovereign and their natural country,
 
 THE DEFEAT OF THE SPANISH ARMADA, 199 
 
 that all the intents of any enemy whatsoever shall be made 
 void and frustrate, to their confusion, your comfort, and 
 to God's high glory." 
 
 Letters of a similar kind were also sent by the council 
 to each of the nobility and to the great cities. The primate 
 called on the clergy for their contribution ; and by every 
 class of the community the appeal was responded to with 
 liberal zeal, that offered more even than the Queen re- 
 quired. The boasting threats of the Spaniards had roused 
 the spirit of the nation, and the whole people " Were thor- 
 oughly irritated to stir up their whole forces for their de- 
 fense against such prognosticated conquests, so that in a 
 very short time all her whole realm, and every corner, were 
 furnished with armed men on horseback and on foot, and 
 those continually trained, exercised, and put into bands in 
 warlike manner, as in no age ever was before in this realm. 
 
 " There was no sparing of money to provide horse, armor, 
 weapons, powder, and all necessaries ; no, nor want of pro- 
 vision of pioneers, carriages, and victuals in every county of 
 the realm, without exception, to attend upon the armies. And 
 to this general furniture every man voluntarily offered very 
 many their services personally without wages, others money 
 for armor and weapons, and to wage soldiers a matter 
 strange, and never the like heard of in this realm or else- 
 where. And this general reason moved all men to large con- 
 tributions, that when a conquest was to be withstood wherein 
 all should be lost, it was no time to spare a portion." 
 
 Our lion-hearted Queen showed herself worthy of such 
 a people. A camp was formed at Tilbury; and there Eliza- 
 beth rode through the ranks, encouraging her captains and 
 her soldiers by her presence and her words. One of the 
 speeches which she addressed to them during this crisis has 
 been preserved, and, though often quoted, it must not be 
 omitted here. 
 
 " My loving people," she said, " we have been persuaded 
 by some that are careful of our saiety to take heed how we 
 commit ourselves to armed multitudes, for fear of treachery; 
 but I assure you I do not desire to live to distrust my faith- 
 ful and loving people. Let tyrants fear ! I have always so- 
 behaved myself that, under God, I have placed my chiefest 
 strength and safeguard in the loyal hearts and good will of
 
 200 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 my subjects; and therefore I am come among you, as you 
 see, at this time, not for my recreation and disport, but being 
 resolved, in the midst and heat of the battle, to live or die 
 among you all, to lay down for my God, for my kingdom, 
 and for my people my honor and my blood even in the dust. 
 
 " I know I have the body but of a weak and feeble 
 woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of 
 a King of England, too, and think it foul scorn that Parma, 
 of Spain, or any prince of Europe, should dare to invade 
 the borders of my realm, to which, rather than any dishonor 
 shall grow by me, I myself will take up arms; I myself will 
 be your general, judge, and rewarded of every one of your 
 virtues in the field. I know already, for your frowardness, 
 you have deserved rewards and crowns : and we do assure 
 you, on the word of a prince, they shall be duly paid you. 
 In the meantime my lieutenant-general shall be in my 
 stead, than whom never prince commanded a more noble 
 or worthy subject, not doubting but by your obedience to 
 my general, by your concord in the camp, and your valor 
 in the field we shall shortly have a famous victory over 
 those enemies of my God, of my kingdom, and of my people." 
 
 Some of Elizabeth's advisers recommended that the whole 
 care and resources of the government should be devoted to 
 the equipment of the armies, and that the enemy, when he 
 attempted to land, should be welcomed with a battle on the 
 shore. But the wiser councils of Raleigh and others pre- 
 vailed, who urged the importance of fitting out a fleet that 
 should encounter the Spaniards at sea, and, if possible, pre- 
 vent them from approaching the land at all. 
 
 In Raleigh's great work, The History of the World, he 
 takes occasion, when discussing some of the events of the 
 First Punic War, to give his reasons on the proper policy 
 of England when menaced with invasion. Without doubt 
 we have there the substance of the advice which he gave 
 to Elizabeth's council, and the remarks of such a man on 
 such a subject have a general and enduring interest beyond 
 the immediate crisis which called them forth. 
 
 Raleigh says : " Surely I hold that the best way is to 
 keep your enemies from treading upon our ground; wherein 
 if we fail, then must we seek to make him wish that he had 
 stayed at his own home. In such a case, if it should happen,
 
 THE DEFEAT OF THE SPANISH ARMADA. 201 
 
 our judgments are to weigh many particular circumstances 
 that belong not unto this discourse. But making the question 
 general, the positive, Whether England, without the help of 
 her fleet, be able to debar an enemy from landing. I hold 
 that it is unable to do so, and therefore I think it most 
 dangerous to make the adventure; for the encouragement 
 of a first victory to an enemy and the discouragement of 
 being beaten to the invaded, may draw after it a most perilous 
 consequence. 
 
 " Great difference I know there is, and a diverse consider- 
 ation to be had between such a country as France is, strength- 
 ened with many fortified places, and this of ours, where our 
 ramparts are but the bodies of men. But I say that an 
 army to be transported over -sea, and to be landed again in an 
 enemy's country, and the place left to the choice of the in- 
 vader, cannot be resisted on the coast of England. without 
 a fleet to impeach it; no, nor on the coast of France or any 
 other country, except every creek, every fort, or sandy bay 
 had a powerful army in each of them to make opposition.'' 
 
 At the time of the Armada, that policy certainly saved the 
 country, if not from conquest, at least from deplorable 
 calamities. If, indeed, the enemy had landed, we may be 
 sure that he would have been heroically opposed. But history 
 shows us so many examples of the superiority of veteran 
 troops over new levies, however numerous and brave, that, 
 without disparaging our countrymen's soldierly merits, we 
 may well be thankful that no trial of them was then made 
 on English land. Especially must we feel this when we 
 contrast the high military genius of the Prince of Parma, 
 who would have headed the Spaniards with the imbecility 
 of the Earl of Leicester, to whom the deplorable spirit of 
 favoritism, which formed the great blemish on Elizabeth's 
 character, had then committed the chief command of the 
 English armies. 
 
 The ships of the royal navy amounted at this time to no- 
 more than thirty-six ; but the most serviceable merchant 
 vessels were collected from all ports of the country; and the 
 citizens of London, Bristol, and the other great seats of 
 congress showed as liberal a zeal in equipping and manning
 
 202 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 Tessels as the nobility and gentry displayed in mustering 
 forces by land. The sea-faring population of the coasts, of 
 every rank and station, was animated by the same ready spirit ; 
 and the whole number of seamen who came forward to man 
 the English fleet was 17,472; the number of the ships that 
 were collected was 191 ; and the total amount of their ton- 
 nage, 31,985. There was one ship in the fleet the Triumph 
 of 1,100 tons, one of 1,000, one of 900, two of 800 each, 
 three of 600, five of 500, five of 400, six oi. 300, six of 250, 
 twenty of 200, and the residue of inferior burden. 
 
 Application was made to the Dutch for assistance; and, 
 as Stowe expresses it : " The Hollanders came roundly in 
 with three-score sail, brave ships of war, fierce and full of 
 spleen, not so much for England's aid as in just occasion for 
 their own defense, these men foreseeing the greatness of the 
 danger that might ensue if the Spaniard should chance to 
 win the day and get the mastery over them; in due regard 
 whereof their manly courage was inferior to none." 
 
 We have more minute information of the number and 
 equipment of the hostile forces than we have of our own. 
 In the first volume of Hakluyt's Voyages, dedicated to Lord 
 Effingham, who commanded against the Armada, there is 
 given from the contemporary foreign writer Meteran a 
 more complete and detailed catalogue than has perhaps ever 
 appeared of a similar armament. 
 
 " A very large and particular description of this navie was 
 put in print and published by the Spaniards, wherein were 
 set down the number, names, and burthens, of the shippes, 
 the number of mariners and soldiers throughout the whole 
 fleete; likewise the quantitie of their ordinance, of their 
 armor, of bullets, of match, of gun-poulder, of victuals, and 
 of all their navall furniture was in the saide description 
 particularized. 
 
 " Unto all these were added the names of the governours, 
 captaines, noblemen, and gentlemen voluntaries, of whom 
 there was a great multitude that scarce was there any family 
 of accompt, or any one principall man throughout all Spaine 
 that had not a brother, sonne, or kinsman in that fleete ; who 
 all of them were in good hope to purchase unto themselves 
 in that navie as they termed it invincible, endless glory and 
 renown, and to possess themselves of great seigniories and
 
 THE DEFEAT OF THE SPANISH ARMADA. 203 
 
 riches in England and in the Low Countreys. But because 
 the said description was translated and published out of 
 Spanish into divers other languages, we will here only 
 make an abridgement or brief rehearsal thereof. 
 
 " Portugall furnished and set foorth under the conduct of 
 the Duke of Medina Sidonia, generall of the fleete, 10 
 galeons, 2 zabraes, 1,300 mariners, 3,300 souldiers, 300 great 
 pieces, with all requisite furniture. 
 
 " Biscay, under the conduct of John Martines de Ricalde, 
 admiral of the whole fleete, set forth 10 galeons, 4 pataches, 
 700 mariners, 2,000 souldiers, 250 great pieces, etc. 
 
 " Guipusco, under the conduct of Michael de Oquendo, 
 10 galeons, 4 pataches, 700 mariners, 2,000 souldiers, 310 
 great pieces. 
 
 " Italy with the Levant islands, under Martine de Ver- 
 tendona, 10 galeons, 800 mariners, 2,000 souldiers, 310 great 
 pieces, etc. 
 
 " Castile, under Diego Flores de Valdez, 14 galeons, 2 
 pataches, 1,700 mariners, 2,400 souldiers, and 380 great 
 pieces, etc. 
 
 " Andaluzia, under the conduct of Petro de Valdez, 10 
 galeons, i patache, 800 mariners, 2,400 souldiers, 280 great 
 pieces, etc. 
 
 " Item, under the conduct of John Lopez de Medina, 23. 
 great Flemish hulkes, with 700 mariners, 3,200 souldiers, 
 and 400 great pieces. 
 
 " Item, under Hugo de Moncada, 4 galliasses, containing 
 1,200 galley slaves, 460 mariners, 870 souldiers, 200 great 
 pieces, etc. 
 
 " Item, under Diego de Mandrana, 4 gallies of Portugal, 
 with 888 galley-slaves, 360 mariners, 20 great pieces, and 
 other requisite furniture. 
 
 " Item, under Anthonie de Mendoza, 22 pataches and za- 
 braes, with 574 mariners, 488 souldiers, and 193 great pieces. 
 
 " Besides the ships aforementioned, there were 20 caravels 
 rowed with oares, being appointed to performe necessary 
 services under the greater ships, insomuch that all the 
 ships appertayning to this navie amounted unto the summe 
 of 150, eche one being sufficiently provided of furniture and 
 victuals. 
 
 " The number of mariners in the saide fleete were above
 
 204 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 8,000, of slaves 2,088, of souldiers 20,000 besides noblemen 
 and gentlemen voluntaries; of great cast pieces, 2,600. The 
 aforesaid ships were of an huge and incredible capacitie and 
 receipt, for the whole fleete was large enough to containe the 
 burthen of 60,000 tunnes. 
 
 "The galeons were 64 in number, being of an huge 
 bignesse, and very flately built, being of marveilous force 
 also, and so high that they resembled great castles, most fit 
 to defend themselves and to withstand any assault, but in 
 giving any other ships the encounter farr inferiour unto 
 the English and Dutch ships, which can with great dexteritie 
 wield and turne themselves at all assayes. The upper worke 
 of the said galeons was of thicknesse and strength sufficient 
 to beare off musket-shot. The lower worke and the timbers 
 thereof were out of measure strong, being framed of plankes 
 and ribs foure or five foot in thicknesse, insomuch that no 
 bullet could pierce them but such as were discharged hard 
 at hand, which afterward proved true, for a great number of 
 bullets were found to sticke fast within the massie substance 
 of those thicke plankes. Great and well-pitched cables were 
 twined about the masts of their shippes, to strengthen them 
 against the battery of shot. 
 
 " The galliasses were of such bignesse that they con- 
 tained within them chambers, chapels, turrets, pulpits, and 
 other commodities of great houses. The galliasses were 
 rowed with great oares, there being in eche one of them 
 300 slaves for the same purpose, and were able to do great 
 service with the force of their ordinance. All these, together 
 with the residue aforenamed, were furnished and beautified 
 with trumpets, streamers, banners, warlike ensignes, and 
 other such like ornaments. 
 
 " Their pieces of brazen ordinance were 1,600, and of 
 yron a 1,000. 
 
 " The bullets thereto belonging were 120,000. 
 
 "Item of gun-poulder, 5,600 quintals; of matche, 1,200 
 quintals; of muskets and kaleivers, 7,000; of haleberts and 
 partisans, 10,000. 
 
 " Morever, they had great stores of canons, double-canons, 
 culverings and field-pieces for land services. 
 
 " Likewise they were provided of all instruments necessary 
 on land to conveigh and transport their furniture from place
 
 THE DEFEAT OF THE SPANISH ARMADA. 205 
 
 to place, as namely of carts, wheeles, wagons, etc. Also they 
 had spades, mattocks, and baskets to set pionets on worke. 
 They had in like sort great store of mules and horses, and 
 whatsoever else was requisite for a land armie. They were so 
 well stored of biscuit, that for the space of half a yeere they 
 might allow eche person in the whole fleete halfe a quintall 
 every moneth, whereof the whole summe amounteth unto 
 an hundreth thousand quintals. 
 
 " Likewise of wine they had 147,000 pipes, sufficient for 
 halfe a yeere's expedition. Of bacon, 6,500 quintals. Of 
 cheese, 3,000 quintals. Besides fish, rise, beanes, pease, oile, 
 vinegar, etc. 
 
 " Morever, they had 12,000 pipes of fresh water, and all 
 other necessary provision, as namely candles, lanternes, 
 lampes, sailes, hempe, oxe-hides, and lead to stop holes that 
 should be made with the battery of gunshot. To be short, they 
 brought all things expedient, either for a fleete by sea, or for 
 an armie by land. 
 
 " This navie as Diego Pimentelli afterward confessed 
 was estemmed by the King himselfe to containe 32,000 per- 
 sons, and to cost him every day 30,000 ducates. 
 
 " There were in the said navie five terzaes of Spaniards 
 which terzaes the Frenchmen call regiments under the 
 command of five governours, termed by the Spaniards masters 
 of the field, and among the rest there were many olde and 
 expert souldiers chosen out of the garisons of Sicilie, Naples, 
 and Tgrcera. Their captaines or colonels were Diego Pim- 
 entelli, Don Francisco de Toledo, Don Alonqo de Lucon, 
 Don Nicolas de Isla, Don Augustin de Mexia, who had 
 eche of them thirty-two companies under their conduct. 
 Besides the which companies, there were many bands also 
 of t Castilians and Portugals, every one of which had their 
 peculiar governours, captaines, officers, colors and weapons." 
 
 While this huge armament was making ready in the 
 southern ports of the Spanish dominions, the Duke of Parma, 
 with almost incredible toil and skill, collected a squadron of 
 war-ships at Dunkirk, and a large flotilla of other ships and 
 of flat-bottomed boats for the transport to England of the 
 picked troops which were designed to be the main instruments 
 in subduing England. The design of the Spaniards was that 
 the Armada should give them, at least for a time, the com-
 
 206 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 mand of the sea, and that it should join the squadron that 
 Parma had collected off Calais. Then, escorted by an over- 
 powering naval force, Parma and his army were to embark 
 in their flotilla, and cross the sea to England, where they were 
 to be landed, together with the troops which the Armada 
 brought from the ports of Spain. 
 
 The scheme was not dissimilar to one formed against 
 England a little more than two centuries afterward. As 
 Napoleon, in 1785, waited with his army and flotilla at Bou- 
 logne, looking for Villeneuve to drive away the English 
 cruisers and secure him a passage across the Channel, so 
 Parma, in 1588, waited for Medina Sidonia to drive away 
 the Dutch and English squadrons that watched uis flotilla, 
 and to enable his veterans to cross the sea to the land that 
 they were to conquer. Thanks to Providence, in each case 
 England's enemy waited in vain ! 
 
 Although the numbers of sail which the Queen's govern- 
 ment and the patriotic zeal of volunteers had collected for the 
 defense of England exceeded the number of sail in the 
 Spanish fleet, the English ships were, collectively, far inferior 
 in size to their adversaries', their aggregate tonnage being less 
 by half than that of the enemy. In the number of guns and 
 weight of metal the disproportion was still greater. The 
 English admiral was also obliged to subdivide his force; and 
 Lord Henry Seymour, with forty of the best Dutch and 
 English ships, was employed in blockading the hostile ports 
 in Flanders, and in preventing the Duke of Parma from com- 
 ing out of Dunkirk. 
 
 The Invincible Armada, as the Spaniards in the pride of 
 their hearts named it, set sail from the Tagus on May 29, 
 but near Corunna met with a tempest that drove it into port 
 with severe loss. It was the report of the damage done to 
 the enemy by this storm which caused the English Court to 
 suppose that there would be no invasion that year. But, as 
 already mentioned, the English Admiral had sailed to Co- 
 runna, and learned the real state of the case, whence he had 
 returned with his ships to Plymouth. 
 
 The Armada sailed again from Corunna on July 12. The 
 orders of King Philip to the Duke of Medina Sidonia were 
 .rictt he should, on entering the Channel, keep near the 
 French coast, and, if attacked by the English ships, avoid
 
 THE DEFEAT OF THE SPANISH ARMADA. 207 
 
 an action and steer on to Calais roads, where the Prince of 
 Parma's squadron was to join him. The hope of surprising 
 and destroying the English fleet in Plymouth led the Spanish 
 admiral to deviate from these orders and to stand across to 
 
 P 
 
 the English shore; but, on finding that Lord Howard was 
 coming out to meet him, he resumed the original plan, and 
 determined to bend his way steadily toward Calais and Dun- 
 kirk and to keep merely on the defensive against such 
 squadrons of the English as might come up with him. 
 
 It was on Saturday, July 20, that Lord Effingham came 
 in sight of his formidable adversaries. The Armada was 
 drawn up in form of a crescent, which from horn to horn 
 measured seven miles. There was a southwest wind, and be- 
 fore it the vast vessels sailed slowly on. The English let them 
 pass by, and then, following in the rear, commenced an at- 
 tack on them. A running fight now took place in which some 
 of the best ships of the Spaniards were captured ; many more 
 received heavy damage, while the English vessels, which 
 took care not to close with their huge antagonists, but 
 availed themselves of their superior celerity in tacking and 
 maneuvring, suffered little comparative loss. 
 
 Each day added not only to the spirit, but to the number 
 of Effingham's force. Raleigh, Oxford, Cumberland, and 
 Sheffield joined him ; and " the gentlemen of England hired 
 ships from all parts at their own charge, and with one accord 
 came flocking thither as to a set field where glory was to be 
 attained and faithful service performed unto their prince and 
 their country." 
 
 Raleigh justly praises the English admiral for his skillful 
 tactics : " Certainly he that will happily perform a fight at sea 
 must be skillful in making choice of vessels to fight in; he 
 must believe that there is more belonging to a good man- 
 of-war upon the waters than great daring, and must know 
 that there is a great deal of difference between fighting loose 
 or at large and grappling. The guns of a slow ship pierce as 
 well and make as great holes as those in a swift. To clap 
 ships together, without consideration, belongs rather to a 
 madman than to a man-of-war; for by such an ignorant 
 bravery was Peter Strossie lost at the Azores when he fought 
 against the Marquis of Santa Cruza.
 
 208 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 "In like sort had the Lord Charles Howard, Admiral of 
 England, been lost in the year 1588, if he had not been better 
 advised than a great many malignant fools were that found 
 fault with his demeanor. The Spaniards had an army aboard 
 them, and he had none ; they had more ships than he had, and 
 of higher building and charging, so that, had he entangled 
 himself with those great and powerful vessels, he had greatly 
 endangered this kingdom of England; for 20 men upon the 
 defenses are equal to 100 that board and enter ; whereas, then, 
 contrariwise, the Spaniards had a hundred for twenty of 
 ours to defend themselves withal. But our admiral knew 
 his advantage, and held it; which had he not done, he had 
 not been worthy to have held his head up." 
 
 The Spanish Admiral also showed great judgment and 
 firmness in following the line of conduct that had been traced 
 out for him; and on July 27 he brought his fleet unbroken, 
 though sorely distressed, to anchor in Calais Roads. But 
 the King of Spain had calculated ill the number and the ac- 
 tivity of the English and Dutch fleets. As the old historian 
 expresses it : " It seemeth that the Duke of Parma and the 
 Spaniards grounded upon a vain and presumptuous expecta- 
 tion that all the ships of England and of the Low Countryes 
 would at the first sight of the Spanish and Dunkerk navie had 
 betaken themselves to flight, yeelding them sea-room, and 
 endeavoring only to defend themselues, their havens, and 
 sea-coast from invasion. 
 
 " Wherefor their intent and purpose was, that the Duke 
 of Parma, in his small and flat-bottomed ships, should, as it 
 were, under the shadow and wings of the Spanish fleet, 
 convey ouer all his troupes, armor, and warlike provisions, 
 and with their forces so united, should invade England; 
 or while the English fleet were busied in the fight against 
 the Spanish, should enter upon any part of the coast, which 
 he thought to be most convenient. Which invasion as the 
 captives afterward confessed the Duke of Parma thought 
 first to have attempted by the River of Thames; upon the 
 banks whereof having at the first arrivall landed twenty 
 or thirty thousand of his principall souldiers, he supposed 
 that he might easily have wonne the citie of London ; both 
 because his small shippes should have followed and assisted 
 his land forces and also for that the citie it-self e was but
 
 THE DEFEAT OF THE SPANISH ARMADA. 209 
 
 meanely fortified and easie to ouercome, by reason of the 
 citizen's delicacie and discontinuance from the warres, who, 
 with continuall and constant labor, might be vannuished, 
 if they yielded not at the first assault." 
 
 But the English and Dutch found ships and mariners 
 enough to keep the Armada itself in check, and at the 
 same time to block up Parma's flotilla. The greater part 
 of Seymour's squadron left its cruising-ground off Dunkirk 
 to join the English Admiral off Calais; but the Dutch 
 manned about five and thirty sail of good ships, with a 
 strong force of soldiers on board, all well seasoned to the 
 sea-service, and with these he blockaded the Flemish ports 
 that were in Parma's power. Still it was resolved by the 
 Spanish Admiral and the Prince to endeavor to effect a 
 junction, which the English seamen were equally resolute 
 to prevent; and bolder measures on our side now became 
 necessary. 
 
 The Armada lay off Calais, with its largest ships ranged 
 outside, " like strong castles fearing no assault, the lesser 
 placed in the middle ward." The English Admiral could 
 not attack them in their position without great disadvantage, 
 but on the night of the 29th, he sent eight fire ships among 
 them, with almost equal effect to that of the fire ships which 
 the Greeks so often employed against the Turkish fleets in 
 their war of independence. 
 
 The Spaniards cut their cables and put to sea in confusion. 
 One of the largest galeases ran foul of another vessel and 
 was stranded. The rest of the fleet was scattered about on 
 the Flemish coast, and when the morning broke, it was with 
 difficulty and delay that they obeyed their Admiral's signal 
 to range themselves round him near Gravelines. Now was 
 the golden opportunity for the English to assail them, and pre- 
 vent them from ever letting loose Parma's flotilla against 
 England, and nobly was that opportunity used. 
 
 Drake and Fenner were the first English captains who 
 attacked the unwieldy leviathans; then came Fenton, South- 
 well, Burton, Cross, Raynor, and then the Lord Admiral, 
 with Lord Thomas Howard and Lord Sheffield. The Span- 
 iards only thought of forming and keeping close together, 
 and were driven by the English past Dunkirk, and far away 
 from the Prince of Parma, who, in watching their defeat 
 
 14
 
 210 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 from the coast, must, as Drake expressed it, have chafed 
 like a bear robbed of her whelps. This was indeed the last 
 and the decisive battle between the two fleets. It is, perhaps, 
 best described in the very words of the contemporary writer, 
 as we read them in Hakluyt: 
 
 " Upon the -29th of July in the morning, the Spanish fleet 
 after the forsayd tumult, having arranged themselves again 
 into order, were, within sight of Greveling, most bravely and 
 furiously encountered by the English, where they once again 
 got the wind of the Spaniards, who suffered themselues to 
 be deprived of the commodity of the place in Caleis road, 
 and of the advantage of the wind neer unto Dunkerk, rather 
 than they would change their array or separate their forces 
 now conjoyned and united together standing only upon their 
 defense. 
 
 " And albeit there were many excellent and warlike ships 
 in the English fleet, yet scarce were there 22 or 23 among 
 them all, which matched ninety of the Spanish ships in the 
 bigness, or could conveniently assault them, wherefore the 
 English ships using their prerogative of nimble steering, 
 whereby they could turn and wield themselves with the wind 
 which way they listed, came oftentimes very near upon the 
 Spaniards, and charged them so sore that now and then 
 they were but a pipe's length asunder; and so continually 
 giving them one broadside after another, they discharged all 
 their shot, both great and small, upon them, spending one 
 whole day, from morning till night, in that violent kind of 
 conflict, until such time as powder and bullets failed them. 
 
 " In regard of which want they thought it convenient not 
 to pursue the Spaniards any longer, because they had many 
 advantages of the English, namely, for the extraordinary big- 
 ness of their shippes, and also for that they were so nearly 
 conjoyned, and kept together in so good array, that they 
 could by no means be fought withall one to one. The 
 English thought, therefore, that they had right well acquitted 
 themselues in chasing the Spaniards first from Caleis, and then 
 from Dunkerk, and by that means to have hindered them from 
 joining with the Duke of Parma his forces and getting the 
 wind of them, to have driven them from their own coast. 
 
 " The Spaniards that day sustained great loss and damage, 
 having many of their shippes show thorow and thorow, and
 
 THE DEFEAT OF THE SPANISH ARMADA. 211 
 
 they discharged likewise great store of ordinance against 
 the English, who, indeed, sustained some hinderance, but not 
 comparable to the Spaniards' loss; for they lost not any one 
 ship for person of account ; for very diligent inquisition being 
 made, the English men all the time wherein the Spanish 
 navy sayled upon their seas, are not found to haue wanted 
 aboue one hundred of their people ; albeit Sir Francis Drake's 
 ship was pierced with shot aboue forty times, and his very 
 cabben was twice shot thorow, and about the conclusion of the 
 fight, the bed of a certaine gentleman lying weary thereupon 
 was taken quite from under him with the force of a bullet. 
 
 " Likewise, as the Earle of Northumberland and Sir 
 Charles Blunt were at dinner upon a time, the bullet of a 
 demy-culvering brake thorow the middest of their cabben, 
 touched their feet, and stroke downe two of the standers-by. 
 With many such accidents befalling the English shippes, 
 which were tedious to rehearse." 
 
 It reflects little credit on the English government that the 
 English fleet was so deficiently supplied with ammunition as 
 to be unable to complete the destruction of the invaders. But 
 enough was done to insure it. Many of the largest Spanish 
 ships were sunk or captured in the action of this day, and 
 at length the Spanish Admiral, despairing of success, fled 
 northward with a southerly wind, in the hope of rounding 
 Scotland, and so returning to Spain without a further 
 encounter with the English fleet. 
 
 Lord Effingham left a squadron to continue the block- 
 ade of the Prince of Parma's armament; but that wise 
 general soon withdrew his troops to more promising fields 
 of action. Meanwhile the Lord Admiral himself and Drake 
 chased the " vincible " Armada, as it was now termed, for 
 some distance northward; and then, when they seemed to 
 bend away from the Scotch coast toward Norway, it was 
 thought best, in the words of Drake, " to leave them to 
 those boisterous and uncouth northern seas." 
 
 The sufferings and losses which the unhappy Spaniards 
 sustained in their flight round Scotland and Ireland are 
 well known. Of their whole Armada only 53 shattered 
 vessels brought back their beaten and wasted crews to the 
 Spanish coast, which they had quitted in such pageantry 
 and pride.
 
 212 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 Some passages from the writings of those who took part 
 in the struggle have been already quoted, and the most 
 spirited description of the defeat of the Armada which ever 
 was penned may perhaps be taken from the letter which our 
 brave Vice-admiral Drake wrote in answer to some men- 
 dacious stories by which the Spaniards strove to hide their 
 shame. Thus does he describe the siege in which he played 
 so important a part: 
 
 " They were not ashamed to publish, in sundry languages 
 in print, great victories in words which they pretended to 
 have obtained against this realm, and spread the same in 
 a most false sort over all parts of France, Italy, and else- 
 where; when, shortly afterward, it was happily manifested 
 in very deed to all nations, how their navy, which they 
 termed invincible, consisting of 140 sail of ships, not only 
 of their own kingdom, but strengthened with the greatest 
 argosies, Portugal carracks, Florentines, and large hulks 
 of other countries, were by 30 of Her Majesty's own ships 
 of war, and a few of our own merchants, by the wise, valiant, 
 and advantageous conduct of the Lord Charles Howard, high 
 admiral of England, beaten and shuffled together even from 
 the Lizard in Cornwall, first to Portland, when they shame- 
 fully left Don Pedro de Valdez with his mighty ship; from 
 Portland to Calais, where they lost Hugh de Moncado, with 
 the galleys of which he was captain ; and from Calais, driven 
 with squibs from their anchor, were chased out of the sight 
 of England round about Scotland and Ireland; where, for 
 the sympathy of their religion, hoping to find succor and 
 assistance, a great part of them were crushed against the 
 rocks, and those others that landed, being very many in num- 
 ber, were, notwithstanding, broken, slain, and taken, and so 
 sent from village to village, coupled in halters to be shipped 
 into England where Her Majesty, of her princely and invin- 
 cible disposition, disdained to put them to death, and scorning 
 either to retain or to entertain them, they were all sent back 
 again to their countries to witness and recount the worthy 
 achievements of their invincible and dreadful navy. Of 
 which the number of soldiers, the fearful burden of their 
 ships, the commanders' names of every squadron, with all 
 others, their magazines of provisions, were put in print, 
 as an army and navy irresistible and disdaining prevention;
 
 THE GUNPOWDER PLOT. 213 
 
 with all which their great and terrible ostentation they did 
 not in all their sailing round about England so much as 
 sink or take one ship, barque, pinnace, or cock-boat of ours, 
 or even burn so much as one sheep-cote on this land." 
 
 The Gunpowder Plot. 
 
 A. D. 1605. 
 Samuel R. Gardiner. 
 
 When James I, son of the unhappy Mary Stuart, succeeded 
 Elizabeth on the English throne in 1603, holding both England 
 and Scotland under his sway, the English Catholics began to 
 hope that he, the son of such a Catholic mother, would be 
 favorably disposed toward their faith. In this they were 
 disappointed, and a number of desperate Roman Catholics united 
 in what is known as The Gunpowder Plot. Attempts have been 
 made to prove that this really amounted to very little, and was 
 exaggerated by James' minister, the Earl of Salisbury, to justify 
 the harshness of the Government toward Catholics, but the 
 fact remains that such a plot did exist, and although it ended 
 in smoke, it was intended in dead earnest to work the greatest 
 harm to one of the foremost Prostestant nations of the world. 
 The following presentation of the matter is by the standard 
 English historian, Gardiner, who confines the account almost 
 wholly to Fawkes' own confessions. 
 
 " Early in 1604, the three men, Robert Catesby, John 
 Wright, and Thomas Winter, meeting in a house at Lambeth, 
 resolved on a Powder Plot, though, of course, only in out- 
 line. By April they had added to their number Wright's 
 brother-in-law, Thomas Percy, and Guy Fawkes, a Yorkshire 
 man of respectable family, but actually a soldier of fortune, 
 serving in the Spanish army in the Low Countries, who was 
 specially brought over to England as a capable and resolute 
 man. Later on they enlisted Wright's brother Christopher, 
 Winter's brother Robert, Robert Keyes, and a few more ; but 
 all, with the exception of Thomas Bates, Catesby's servant, 
 were men of family and for the most part of competent for- 
 tune, though Keyes is said to have been in straitened circum- 
 stances, and Catesby to have been impoverished by a heavy 
 fine levied on him as a recusant. 
 
 " Percy, a second cousin of the Earl of Northumberland^
 
 214 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 then captain of the Gentlemen Pensioners, was admitted by 
 him into that body in it is said an irregular manner, his 
 relationship to the Earl passing in lieu of the usual oath of 
 fidelity. The position gave him some authority and license 
 near the court, and enabled him to hire a house, or part of 
 a house, adjoining the House of Lords. From the cellar of 
 this house they proposed to burrow under the House of 
 Lords, to place there a large quantity of powder, and to 
 blow up the whole place when the King and his family were 
 there assembled at the opening of Parliament. On December 
 II, 1604, they began to dig in the cellar, and after a fort- 
 night's labor, having come to a thick wall, they left off work 
 and separated for Christmas. 
 
 " Early in January they began at the wall, which they 
 found to be extremely hard, so that, after working for about 
 two months, they had not got more than half way through 
 it. They then learned that a cellar actually under the House 
 of Lords, and used as a coal cellar, was to be let; and as 
 it was most suitable for their design, Percy hired it as 
 though for his own use. The digging was stopped, and 
 powder, to the amount of thirty-six barrels, was brought into 
 the cellar, where it was stored under heaps of coal or fire- 
 wood, and so remained, under the immediate care of Guy 
 Fawkes, till, on the night of November 4, 1605 the opening 
 of Parliament being fixed for the next day Sir Thomas 
 Knyvet, with a party of men, was ordered to examine the 
 cellar. He met Fawkes coming out of it, arrested him, 
 and on a close search found the powder, of which a mysteri- 
 ous warning had been conveyed to Lord Monteagle a few days 
 before. On the news of this discovery the conspirators 
 scattered, but by different roads rejoined each other in War- 
 wickshire, whence, endeavoring to raise the country, they 
 rode through Worcestershire, and were finally shot or taken 
 prisoners at Holbeche in Staffordshire." 
 
 It is this traditional story that I now propose to com- 
 pare with the evidence. First of all, let us restrict our- 
 selves to the story told by Guy Fawkes himself in the five 
 examinations to which he was subjected previously to his 
 being put to the torture on November 9, and to the letters, 
 proclamations, etc., issued by the Government during the 
 four days commencing with the 5th. From these we learn,
 
 THE GUNPOWDER PLOT. 215 
 
 not only that Fawkes' account of the matter gradually de- 
 veloped, but that the knowledge of the Government also 
 developed; a fact which fits in very well with the "traditional 
 story," but which is hardly to be expected if the Government 
 account of the affair was cut-and-dried from the first. 
 
 Fawkes' first examination took place on November 5, and 
 was conducted by Chief-Justice Popham and Attorney-Gen- 
 eral Coke. It is true that only a copy has reached us, but 
 it is a copy taken for Coke's use, as is shown by the headings 
 of each paragraph inserted in the margin in his own hand. 
 It is therefore out of the question that Salisbury, if he had 
 been so minded, would have been able to falsify it. Each 
 page has the signature (in copy) of "Jhon Jhonson," the 
 name by which Fawkes chose to be known. 
 
 The first part of the examination turns upon Fawkes' 
 movements abroad, showing that the Government had already 
 acquired information that he had been beyond seas. Fawkes 
 showed no reluctance to speak of his own proceedings in the 
 Low Countries, or to give the names of persons he had met 
 there, and who were beyond the reach of his examiners. As 
 to his movements after his return to England, he was ex- 
 plicit enough so far as he was himself concerned, and also 
 about Percy, whose servant he professed himself to be, and 
 whose connection with the hiring of the house could not be 
 concealed. 
 
 Fawkes stated that after coming back to England he 
 " came to the lodging near the Upper House of Parliament," 
 and "that Percy hired the house of Whynniard for 12 
 rent, about a year and a half ago" ; that his master, before 
 his own going abroad, '. e., before Easter, 1605, " l av * n tne 
 house about three or four times." Further, he confessed 
 "that about Christmas last," . e., Christmas, 1604, "he brought 
 in the night-time gunpowder [to the cellar under the Upper 
 House of Parliament]." Afterward he told how he covered 
 the powder with fagots, intending to blow up the King and 
 the Lords; and, being pressed how he knew that the King 
 would be in the House on the 5th, said he knew it only from 
 general report, and by the making ready of the King's barge ; 
 but he would have " blown up the Upper House whensoever 
 the King was there." 
 
 He further acknowledged that there was more than
 
 316 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 one person concerned in the conspiracy, and said he himself 
 had promised not to reveal it, but denied that he had taken the 
 Sacrament on his promise. Where the promise was given he 
 could not remember, except that it was in England. He re- 
 fused to accuse his partners, saying that he himself had pro- 
 vided the powder, and defrayed the cost of his journey beyond 
 sea, which was only undertaken " to see the country and to 
 pass away the time." When he went, he locked up the powder 
 and took the key with him, and " one Gibbons' wife, who 
 dwells thereby, had the charge of the residue of the house." 
 
 Such is that part of the story told by Fawkes which con- 
 cerns us at present. It is obvious that Fawkes, who, as sub- 
 sequent experience shows, was no coward, had made up his 
 mind to shield as far as possible his confederates, and to take 
 the whole of the blame upon himself. He says, for instance, 
 that Percy had only lain in the house for three or four day 
 before Easter, 1605, a statement, as subsequent evidence 
 proved, quite untrue ; he pretends not to know, except from 
 rumor and the preparation of the barge, that the King was 
 coming to the House of Lords on the 5th, a statement almost 
 certainly untrue. In order not to criminate others, and 
 especially any priest, he denies having taken the Sacrament 
 on his promise, which is also untrue. 
 
 What is more noticeable is that he makes no mention of 
 the mine, about which so much was afterward heard, evi- 
 dently so at least I read the evidence because he did not 
 wish to bring upon the stage those who had worked at it. 
 If indeed the passage which I have placed in square brackets 
 be accepted as evidence, Fawkes did more than keep silence 
 upon the mine. He must have made a positive assertion 
 soon afterward found to be untrue that the cellar was hired 
 several months before it really was. This passage is, how- 
 ever, inserted in a different hand from the rest of the docu- 
 ment My own belief is that it gives a correct account of a 
 statement made by the prisoner, but omitted by the clerk 
 who made the copy for Coke, and inserted by some other 
 person. Nobody that I can think of had the slightest interest 
 in adding the words, while they are just what Fawkes might 
 be expected to say if he wanted to lead his examiners off the 
 scent. At all events, even if these words be left out of ac-
 
 THE GUNPOWDER PLOT. 217 
 
 count, it must be admitted that Fawkes said nothing about 
 the existence of a mine. 
 
 Though Fawkes kept silence as to the mine, he did not 
 keep silence on the desperate character of the work on which 
 he had been engaged. " And," runs the record, " he con- 
 fessed that when the King had come to the Parliament House 
 this present day, and the Upper House had been sitting, he 
 meant to have fired the match and have fled for his own 
 safety before the powder had taken fire, and confesseth that, 
 if he had not been apprehended this last night, he had blown 
 up the Upper House when the King, Lords, Bishops, and 
 others had been there, and saith that he spake for (and 
 provided) those bars and crows of iron, some in one place, 
 some in another, in London, lest it should be suspected, and 
 saith that he had some of them in or about Gracious 
 Street." Fawkes here clearly takes the whole terrible de- 
 sign, with the exception of the mine, on his own shoulders. 
 
 Commissioners were now appointed to conduct the in- 
 vestigation further. They were: Nottingham, Suffolk, 
 Devonshire, Worcester, Northampton, Salisbury, Mar, and 
 Popham, with Attorney-General Coke in attendance. This 
 was hardly a body of men who would knowingly cover an 
 intrigue of Salisbury's. Worcester is always understood 
 to have been professedly a Catholic; Northampton was cer- 
 tainly one, though he attended the King's service, while 
 Suffolk was friendly toward the Catholics; and Nottingham, 
 if he is no longer to be counted among them, was at least 
 not long afterward a member of the party which favored 
 an alliance with Spain, and therefore a policy of tolera- 
 tion towards the Catholics. 
 
 Before five of these commissioners Nottingham, Suffolk, 
 Devonshire, Northampton, and Salisbury Fawkes was ex- 
 amined for a second time on the forenoon of the 6th. In 
 some way the Government had found out that Percy had had 
 a new door made in the wall leading to the cellar, and they 
 now drew from Fawkes an untrue statement that it was put 
 in about the middle of Lent, that is to say, early in March, 
 1605. They had also discovered a pair of brewer's slings, 
 by which barrels were usually carried between two men, 
 and they pressed Fawkes hard to say who was his partner in 
 removing the barrels of gunpowder. He began by denying
 
 218 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 that he had had a partner at all, but finally answered that 
 " he cannot discover the party, but " i. e., lest " he shall 
 bring him in question." He also said that he had forgotten 
 where he slept on Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday in the 
 week before his arrest. 
 
 Upon this James himself intervened, submitting to the 
 Commissioners a series of questions with the object of 
 drawing out of the prisoner a true account of himself and of 
 his relations to Percy. A letter had been found on Fawkes 
 when he was taken, directed not to Johnson, but to Fawkes, 
 and this among other things had raised the King's sus- 
 picions. In his third examination, on the afternoon of the 
 6th, in the presence of Northampton, Devonshire, Notting- 
 ham, and Salisbury, Fawkes -gave a good deal of information, 
 more or less true, about himself; and, while still maintaining 
 that his real name was Johnson, said that the letter, which 
 was written by a Mrs. Bostock in Flanders, was addressed 
 to him by another name " because he called himself Fawkes," 
 that is to say, because he had acquired the name of Fawkes 
 as an alias. 
 
 " If he will not otherwise confess," the King had ended 
 by saying, " the gentler tortures are to be first used unto 
 him, et sic per gradus ad ima tenditur." 
 
 Some little information, indeed, was coming in from 
 other witnesses. In his first examination, on November 5, 
 Fawkes had stated that in his absence he locked up the 
 powder, and " one Gibbons' wife, who dwells thereby, had 
 the charge of the residue of the house." An examination 
 of her husband on the 5th, however, only elicited that he, 
 being a porter, had with two others carried three thousand 
 billets into the vault. On the 6th, Ellen, the wife of Andrew 
 Bright, stated that Percy's servant had, about the beginning 
 of March, asked her to let the vault to his master, and that 
 she had consented to abandon her tenancy of it if Mrs. 
 Whynniard, from whom she held it, would consent. Mrs. 
 Whynniard's consent having been obtained, Mrs. Bright, 
 or rather Mrs. Skinner she being a widow remarried sub- 
 sequently to Andrew Bright received two pounds for 
 giving up the premises.
 
 THE GUNPOWDER PLOT. 219 
 
 The important point in this evidence is that the date of 
 March, 1605, given as that on which Percy entered into 
 possession of the cellar, showed that Fawkes' statement that 
 he had brought powder into the cellar at Christmas, 1604, 
 could not possibly be true. On the 7th Mrs. Whynniard 
 confirmed Mrs. Bright's statement, and also stated that, a 
 year earlier, in March, 1604, " Mr. Percy began to labor 
 very earnestly with this examinate and her husband to have 
 the lodging by the Parliament House, which one Mr. Henry 
 Ferris, of Warwickshire, had long held before, and, having 
 obtained the said Mr. Ferris' good-will to part from it 
 after long suit by himself and great entreaty of Mr. 
 Carleton, Mr. Epsley, and other gentlemen belonging to the 
 Earl of Northumberland, affirming him to be a very honest 
 gentleman, and that they could not have a better tenant, 
 her husband and she were contented to let him have the 
 said lodging at the same rent Mr. Ferris paid for it." 
 
 Mrs. Whynniard had plainly never heard of the mine; 
 and that the Government was in equal ignorance is shown 
 by the indorsement on the agreement of Ferris or rather 
 Ferres to make over his tenancy to Percy " The bargain 
 between Ferris and Percy for the bloody cellar, found in 
 Winter's lodging." Winter's name had been under con- 
 sideration for some little time, and doubtless the discovery 
 of this paper was made on, or more probably before, the 7th. 
 The Government, having as yet nothing but Fawkes' evi- 
 dence to go upon, connected' the hiring of the house with 
 the hiring of the cellar, and at least showed no signs of 
 suspecting anything more. 
 
 On the same day, the 7th, something was definitely heard 
 of the proceedings of the other plotters, who had either 
 gathered at the Dunchurch for the hunting-match, or had 
 fled from London to join them, and a proclamation was issued 
 for the arrest of Percy, Catesby, Rokewood, Thomas Winter, 
 Edward Grant, John and Christopher Wright, and Catesby's 
 servant, Robert Ashfield. They were charged with assembling 
 in troops in the counties of Warwick and Worcester, break- 
 ing into stables and seizing horses. Fawkes, too, was on that 
 day subjected to a fourth examination. Not very much that 
 was new was extracted from him. He acknowledged that 
 his real name was Guy Fawkes, that which he had denied
 
 220 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 before he had received the Sacrament not to discover any 
 of the conspirators, and also that there had been at first 
 five persons privy to the plot, and afterward five or six 
 more " were generally acquainted that an action was to be 
 performed for the Catholic cause, and saith that he doth 
 not know that they were acquainted with the whole con- 
 spiracy." Being asked whether Catesby, the two Wrights, 
 Winter, or Tresham, were privy, he refused to accuse any 
 one. 
 
 That Fawkes had already been threatened with torture is 
 known, and it may easily be imagined that the threats had been 
 redoubled after this last unsatisfactory acknowledgment. On 
 the morning of the 8th, however, Waad, who was employed 
 to worm out his secrets, reported that little was to be ex- 
 pected. " I find this fellow," he wrote, " who this day is in 
 a most stubborn and perverse humor, as dogged as if he 
 were possessed. Yesternight I had persuaded him to set 
 down a clear narration of all his wicked plots from the 
 first entering to the same, to the end they pretended, with 
 the discourses and projects that were thought up amongst 
 them, which he undertook (to do) and craved time this night 
 to bethink him the better ; but this morning he hath changed 
 his mind and is (so) sullen and obstinate as there is no deal- 
 ing with him." 
 
 The sight of the examiners, together with the sight of the 
 rack, changed Fawkes' mind to some extent. He was re- 
 solved that nothing but actual torture should ring from him 
 the names of his fellow-plotters, who, so far as was known 
 in London, were still at large. He prepared himself, however, 
 to reveal the secrets of the plot so far as was consistent 
 with the concealment of the names of those concerned in it. 
 His fifth examination, on the 8th, the last before the one 
 taken under torture on the 9th, gives to the inquirer into 
 the reality of the plot all that he wants to know. 
 
 " He confesseth," so the tale begins, " that a practice 
 was first broken unto him against His Majesty for the Cath- 
 olic cause, and not invented or propounded by himself, and 
 this was first propounded unto him about Easter last was 
 twelvemonth, beyond the seas in the Low Countries, by an 
 English layman, and that Englishman came over with him 
 in his company into England, and they two and three more
 
 THE GUNPOWDER PLOT. 221 
 
 were the first five mentioned in the former examination. And 
 they five resolving to do somewhat for the Catholic cause 
 (a vow being first taken by all of them for secrecy), one 
 of the other three propounded to perform it with powder, and 
 resolved that the place should be (where this action should 
 be performed and justice done) in or near the place of the 
 sitting of the Parliament, wherein religion had been unjustly 
 suppressed. This being resolved, the manner of it was as 
 followeth : 
 
 " First they hired the house at Westminster, of one Ferres, 
 and having his house, they sought them to make a mine 
 tinder the Upper House of Parliament, and they began to 
 make the mine in or about the nth of December, and they 
 five first entered into the works, and soon after took an other 
 to them, having first sworn him and taken the sacrament 
 of secrecy; and when they came to the wall (that was about 
 three yards thick) and found it a matter of great difficulty, 
 they took to them an other in like manner, with oath and 
 Sacrament, as aforesaid; all which seven were gentlemen of 
 name and blood, and not any was employed in or about this 
 action (no, not so much as in digging and mining) that was 
 not a gentleman. 
 
 " And having wrought to the wall before Christmas, they 
 ceased until after the holidays, and the day before Christ- 
 mas (having a mass of earth that came out of the mine) they 
 carried it into the garden of the said house, and after Christ- 
 mas they wrought the wall till Candlemas, and wrought the 
 wall half through; and saith that all the time while the other 
 wrought, he stood as sentinel to decry any man that came 
 near ; and when any man came near to the place, upon warn- 
 ing given by him they ceased until they had notice to pro- 
 ceed from him; and sayeth that they seven all lay in the 
 house, and had shot and powder, and they all resolved to 
 die in that place before they yielded or were taken. 
 
 " And, as they were working, they heard a rushing in the 
 cellar, which grew by one Bright's selling of his coals, where- 
 upon this examinant, fearing they had been discovered, went 
 into the cellar and viewed the cellar, and perceiving the 
 commodity thereof for their purpose, and understanding how 
 it would be letten. his master, Mr. Percy, hired the cellar for 
 a year for 4 rent; and confesseth that after Christmas
 
 222 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 twenty barrels of powder were brought by themselves to a 
 house, which they had on the bank side, in hampers, and 
 from that house removed the powder to the said house near 
 the Upper House of Parliament; and, presently, upon hiring 
 the cellar, they themselves removed the powder into the 
 cellar, and covered the same with fagots which they had be- 
 fore laid into the cellar. 
 
 " After, about Easter, he went into the Low Countries (as 
 he before hath declared in his former examination), and that 
 the true purpose of his going over was, lest, being a danger- 
 ous man, he should be known and suspected, and in the 
 mean time he left the key of the cellar with Mr. Percy, who 
 in his absence caused more billets to be laid into the cellar, 
 as in his former examination he confessed, and returned 
 about the end of August, or the beginning of September, and 
 went again to the said house, near to the said cellar, and re- 
 ceived the key of the cellar again of one of the five, and then 
 they brought in five or six barrels of powder more into the 
 cellar, which also they covered with billets, saving four little 
 barrels covered with fagots, and then this examinant went 
 into the country about the end of September. 
 
 "It appeareth the powder was in the cellar placed as it 
 was found the 5th of November, when the Lords came to 
 prorogue the Parliament, and sayeth that he returned again 
 to the said house near the cellar on Wednesday, the 3Oth of 
 October. 
 
 " He confesseth he was at the Earl of Montgomery's mar- 
 riage, but, as he sayeth, with no intention of evil, having a 
 sword about him, and was very near to His Majesty and the 
 Lords there present. 
 
 " Forasmuch as they knew not well how they should 
 come by the person of the Duke Charles, being near London, 
 where they had no forces (if he had not been also blown up), 
 he confesseth that it was resolved among them that the same 
 day that this detestable act should have been performed, the 
 same day should other of their confederacy have surprised 
 the person of the Lady Elizabeth, and presently have pro- 
 claimed her Queen, to which purpose a proclamation was 
 drawn, as well to avow and justify the action as to have pro- 
 tested against the Union, and in no sort to have meddled with 
 religion therein, and would have protested also against all
 
 THE GUNPOWDER PLOT. 223 
 
 strangers, and this proclamation should have been made in 
 the name of the Lady Elizabeth. 
 
 " Being demanded why they did not surprise the King's 
 person, and draw him to the effecting of their purpose, 
 sayeth that so many must have been acquainted with such 
 an action as it would not have been kept secret. 
 
 " He confesseth that if their purpose had taken effect, 
 until they had had power enough, they would not have avowed 
 the deed to be theirs; but if their power (for their defense 
 and safety) had been sufficient, they themselves would then 
 have taken it upon them. They meant also to have sent for 
 the prisoners in the Tower to have come to them, of whom 
 particularly they had some consultation. 
 
 " He confesseth that the place of rendezvous was in War- 
 wickshire, and that armor was sent thither, but the particular 
 thereof he knows not. 
 
 " He confesseth that they had consultation for the taking 
 of the Lady Mary into their possession, but knew not how 
 to come by her. 
 
 " And confesseth that provision was made by some of the 
 conspiracy of some armor of proof this last summer for 
 this action. 
 
 " He confesseth that the powder was bought by the com- 
 mon purse of the confederates. 
 
 " L. Admiral (Earl of Nottingham) Earl of Salisbury 
 
 " L. Chamberlain (Earl of Suffolk) Earl of Mar 
 
 "Earl of Devonshire, Lord Chief justice (Popham) 
 
 " Earl of Northampton 
 
 "Attended by Mr. Attorney-General (Coke)." 
 
 The Qth, the day on which Fawkes was put to the torture, 
 brought news to the government that the fear of insurrec- 
 tion need no longer be entertained. It had been known be- 
 fore this that Fawkes' confederates had met on the 5th at 
 Dunchurch on the pretext of a hunting-match, and had been 
 breaking open houses in Warwickshire and Worcestershire in 
 order to collect arms. Yet so indefinite was the knowledge 
 of the council that, on the 8th, they offered a reward for the 
 apprehension of Percy alone, without including any of the 
 other conspirators. On the evening of the 9th they received 
 a letter from Sir Richard Walsh, the Sheriff of Wor- 
 cestershire.
 
 224 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 " We think fit," he wrote, " with all speed to certify your 
 Lordships of the happy success it hath pleased God to give 
 us against the rebellious assembly in these parts. After 
 such time as they had taken the horses from Warwick upon 
 Tuesday night last, they came to Mr. Robert Winter's house 
 to Huddington upon Wednesday night, where having 
 entered (they) armed themselves at all points in open re- 
 bellion. They passed from thence upon Thursday morning 
 unto Hewell the Lord Windsor's house which they en- 
 tered and took from thence by force great store of armor, 
 artillery of the said Lord Windsor's, and passed that night 
 into the county of Staffordshire unto the house of one 
 Stephen Littleton, Gentleman, called Holbeche, about two 
 miles distant from Stourbridge, whither we pursued, with 
 the assistance of Sir John Foliot, Knight; Francis Ketelsby, 
 Esquire; Humphrey Salway, Gentleman; Edmund Walsh 
 and Francis Conyers, Gentlemen, with few other gentlemen 
 and the power and face of the country. 
 
 " We made against them upon Thursday morning, and 
 freshly pursued them until the next day, at which time, about 
 twelve or one of the clock in the afternoon, we overtook 
 them at the said Holbeche House the greatest part of their 
 retinue and some of the better sort being dispersed and fled 
 before our coming, whereupon and after summons and warn- 
 ing first given and proclamation in his Highness's name to 
 yield and submit themselves who refusing the same, we 
 fired some part of the house and assaulted some part of the 
 rebellious persons left in the said house, in which assault one 
 Mr. Robert Catesby is slain, and three others verily thought 
 wounded to death whose names as far as we can learn 
 are Thomas Percy, Gentleman; John Wright; and Christo- 
 pher Wright, Gentleman; and these are apprehended and 
 taken: Thomas Winter, Gentleman; John Grant, Gentleman; 
 Henry Morgan, Gentleman; Ambrose Rokewood, Gentleman; 
 Thomas Ockley, carpenter; Edmund Townsend, servant to 
 the said John Grant ; Nicholas Pelborrow, servant unto the 
 said Ambrose Rokewood ; Edward Ockley, carpenter ; Rich- 
 ard Townsend, servant to the said Robert Winter; Richard 
 Day, servant to the said Stephen Littleton, which said pris- 
 oners are in safe custody here, and so shall remain until 
 your Honors' good pleasures be further known. The rest
 
 THE ASSASSINATION OF WILLIAM THE SILENT. 228 
 
 of that rebellious assembly is dispersed, we have caused to 
 be followed with fresh suite and hope of their speedy ap- 
 prehension. We have also thought fit to send unto your 
 Honors according unto our duties such letters as we have 
 found about the parties apprehended; and so resting in all 
 duty at your Honors' further command, we take leave, from 
 Stourbridge this Saturday morning, being the sixth of this 
 instant November, 1605. 
 
 " Your Honors' most humble to be commanded, 
 
 "RICH. WALSH." 
 
 The Assassination of William the Silent 
 
 Motley's Dutch Republic. 
 
 This is one of the best chapters from the great American's 
 superb history. The style is clear, vivid, and eloquent ; with 
 that stateliness which is in harmony with the subject, and does 
 not for a moment detract from the energy of the author^ 
 thought. 
 
 In this chapter we have another instance of the pernicious 
 influence of the Church of Rome upon the minds of those who 
 are foolish enough to entrust their souls to the care of her 
 priests. These men often have less fear of God than a criminal, 
 and know less of right and wrong than many a heathen. We 
 see from it that an entirely uninstructed conscience, weak as it 
 is, is nevertheless to be preferred to one that has been system- 
 atically corrupted by endless repetition of the grossest errors. 
 
 In the summer of 1584, William of Orange was residing 
 at Delft, where his wife, Ixmisa de Coligny, had given birth, 
 in the preceding winter, to a son, afterwards the celebrated 
 stadholder, Frederic Henry. The child had received these 
 names from his two godfathers, the Kings of Denmark and 
 of Navarre, and his baptism had been celebrated with much 
 rejoicing on the I2th of June, in the place of his birth. 
 
 It was a quiet, cheerful, yet somewhat drowsy little city, 
 that ancient burgh of Delft. The placid canals by which it 
 was intersected in every direction were all planted with 
 whispering, umbrageous rows of limes and poplars, and along 
 these watery highways the traffic of the place glided so noise- 
 lessly that the town seemed the abode of silence and tran- 
 quillity. The streets were clean and airy, the houses we! 
 built, the whole aspect of the place thriving. 
 15
 
 226 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 One of the principal thoroughfares was called the old 
 Delft street. It was shaded on both sides by lime trees, which 
 in that midsummer season covered the surface of the canal 
 which flowed between them with their light and fragrant 
 blossoms. On one side of this street was the " old kirk," a 
 plain, antique structure of brick, with lancet windows and 
 with a tall, slender tower, which inclined, at a very consid- 
 erable angle, towards a house upon the other side of the 
 canal. That house was the mansion of William the Silent. 
 It stood directly opposite the church, being separated by a 
 spacious courtyard from the street, while the stables and other 
 offices in the rear extended to the city wall. A narrow lane, 
 opening out of Delft street, ran along the side of the house 
 and court, in the direction of the ramparts. The house was 
 a plain, two-storied edifice of brick, with red-tiled roof, and 
 had formerly been a cloister dedicated to Saint Agatha, the 
 last prior of which had been hanged by the furious Lumey de 
 la Marck. 
 
 The news of Anjou's death had been brought to Delft 
 by a special messenger from the French court. On Sunday 
 morning, the 8th of July, 1584, the Prince of Orange, having 
 read the dispatches before leaving his bed, caused the man 
 who had brought them to be summoned, that he might give 
 some particular details by word of mouth concerning the 
 last illness of the Duke. The courier was accordingly ad- 
 mitted to the Prince's bed-chamber, and proved to be one 
 Francis Guion, as he called himself. This man had, early 
 in the spring, claimed and received the protection of Orange, 
 on the ground of being the son of a Protestant at Besanqon, 
 who had suffered death for his religion, and of his own 
 ardent attachment to the Reformed faith. A pious, psalm- 
 singing, thoroughly Calvinistic youth he seemed to be, hav- 
 ing a Bible or a hymn-book under his arm whenever he 
 walked the street, and most exemplary in his attendance at 
 sermon and lecture. For the rest, a singularly unobtrusive 
 personage, twenty-seven years of age, low of stature, meager, 
 mean-visaged, muddy complexioned, and altogether a man 
 of no account quite insignificant in the eyes of all who 
 looked upon him. If there were one opinion in which the 
 few who had taken the trouble to think of the puny, some- 
 what shambling stranger from Burgundy at all coincided,
 
 THE ASSASSINATION OF WILLIAM THE SILENT. 227 
 
 it was that he was inoffensive, but quite incapable of any 
 important business. He seemed well educated, claimed to 
 be of respectable parentage, and had considerable facility 
 of speech, when any person could be found who 'thought 
 it worth while to listen to him ; but on the whole he attracted 
 little attention. 
 
 Nevertheless, this insignificant frame locked up a desper- 
 ate and daring character; this mild and inoffensive nature 
 had gone pregnant seven years with a terrible crime, whose 
 birth could not much longer be retarded. Francis Guion, 
 the Calvinist, son of a martyred Calvinist, was in reality 
 Balthazar Gerard, a fanatical Catholic, whose father and 
 mother were still living at Villefans in Burgundy. Before 
 reaching man's estate, he had formed the design of murder- 
 ing the Prince of Orange, " who, so long as he lived, seemed 
 like to remain a rebel against the Catholic King, and to 
 make every effort to disturb the repose of the Roman Cath- 
 olic Apostolic religion." 
 
 When but twenty years of age, he had struck his dagger 
 with all his might into a door, exclaiming as he did so, 
 " Would that the blow had been in the heart of Orange !" 
 For this he was rebuked by a bystander, who told him it 
 was not for him to kill princes, and that it was not desirable 
 to destroy so good a captain as the prince, who, after all, 
 might one day reconcile himself with the King. 
 
 As soon as the Ban against Orange was published, Bal- 
 thazar, more anxious than ever to execute his long-cherished 
 design, left Dole and came to Luxemburg. Here he learned 
 that the deed had already been done by John Jaureguy. He 
 received this intelligence at first with a sensation of relief, 
 was glad to be excused from putting himself in danger, and 
 believing the Prince dead, took service as clerk with one John 
 Duprel, secretary to Count Mansfeld, governor of Luxem- 
 burg. Ere long, the ill success of Jaureguy's attempt be- 
 coming known, the " inveterate determination " of Gerard 
 aroused itself more fiercely than ever. He accordingly took 
 models of Mansfeld's official seals in wax, in order that he 
 might make use of them as an acceptable offering to the 
 Orange party, whose confidence he meant to gain. 
 
 Various circumstances detained him, however. A sun* 
 of money was stolen, and he was forced to stay till it was
 
 228 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 found, for fear of being arrested as the thief. Then his 
 cousin and employer fell sick, and Gerard was obliged to 
 wait for his recovery. At last, in March, 1584, " the weather, 
 as he said, appearing to be fine," Balthazar left Luxemburg 
 and came to Treves. While there, he confided his scheme 
 to the regent of the Jesuit college a " red-haired man " whose 
 name has not been preserved. That dignitary expressed high 
 approbation of the plan, gave Gerard his blessing, and prom- 
 ised him that, if his life should be sacrificed in achieving his 
 purpose, he should be enrolled among the martyrs. Another 
 Jesuit, however, in the same college, with whom he likewise 
 communicated, held very different language, making great 
 efforts to turn the young man from his design, on the ground 
 of the inconveniences which might arise front the forging 
 0f Mansf eld's seals adding that neither he nor any of the 
 Jesuits liked to meddle with such affairs, but advising that 
 the whole matter should be laid before the Prince of Parma. 
 It does not appear that this personage, " an excellent man 
 and a learned," attempted to dissuade the young man from his 
 project by arguments drawn from any supposed criminality 
 in the assassination itself, or from any danger, temporal or 
 eternal, to which the perpetrator might expose himself. 
 
 Not influenced, as it appears, except on one point, by the 
 advice of this second ghostly confessor, Balthazar came to 
 Tournay, and held council with a third the celebrated Fran- 
 ciscan, Father Gery by whom he was much comforted and 
 strengthened in his determination. His next step was to lay 
 the project before Parma, as the " excellent and learned " 
 Jesuit at Treves had advised. This he did by a letter, drawn 
 tip with much care, and which he evidently thought well of as 
 a composition. One copy of this letter he deposited with the 
 guardian of the Franciscan convent at Tournay ; the other he 
 presented with his own hand to the Prince of Parma. " The 
 vassal," said he, "ought always to prefer justice and the will 
 of the king to his own life." That being the case, he ex- 
 pressed his astonishment that no man had yet been found to 
 execute the sentence against William of Nassau, " except the 
 gentle Biscayan, since defunct." To accomplish the task, 
 Balthazar observed, very judiciously, that it was necessary 
 to have access to the person of the Prince wherein consisted 
 the difficulty. Those who had that advantage, he continued,
 
 THE ASSASSINATION OF WILLIAM THE SILENT. 229 
 
 were therefore bound to extirpate the pest at once, without 
 obliging his Majesty to send to Rome for a chevalier, be- 
 cause not one of them was willing to precipitate himself into 
 the venomous gulf, which by its contagion infected and kihed 
 the souls and bodies of all poor abused subjects exposed to 
 its influence. Gerard avowed himself to have been so long 
 goaded and stimulated by these considerations so extremely 
 nettled with displeasure and bitterness at seeing the obstinate 
 wretch still escaping his just judgment as to have formed 
 the design of baiting a trap for the fox, hoping thus to gain 
 access to him, and to take him unawares. He added without 
 explaining the nature of the trap and the bait that he 
 deemed it his duty to lay the subject before the most serene 
 Prince of Parma, protesting at the same time that he did not 
 contemplate the exploit for the sake of the reward mentioned 
 in the sentence, and that he preferred trusting in that regard 
 to the immense liberality of his Majesty. 
 
 Parma had long been looking for a good man to murder 
 Orange, feeling as Philip, Granvelle, and all former gov- 
 ernors of the Netherlands had felt that this was the only 
 means of saving the royal authority in any part of the prov- 
 inces. Many unsatisfactory assassins had presented them- 
 selves from time to time, and Alexander had paid money in 
 hand to various individuals Italians, Spaniards, Lorrainers, 
 Scotchmen, Englishmen, who had generally spent the sums 
 received without attempting the job. Others were supposed 
 to be still engaged in the enterprise, and at that moment 
 there were four persons each unknown to the others, and 
 of different nations in the city of Delft, seeking to compass 
 the death of William the Silent. Shag-eared, military, 
 hirsute ruffians ex-captains of free companies and such 
 marauders were daily offering their services; there was no 
 lack of them, and they had done but little. How should 
 Parma, seeing this obscure, undersized, thin-bearded, run- 
 away clerk before him, expect pith and energy from him? He 
 thought him quite unfit for an enterprise of moment, and 
 declared as much to his secret councilors and to the King. 
 He soon dismissed him, after receiving his letters, and it may 
 be supposed that the bombastic style of that epistle would not 
 efface the unfavorable impression produced by Balthazar's ex- 
 terior. The representations of Haultepenne and others in-
 
 230 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 duced him so far to modify his views as to send his confiden- 
 tial councilor, d'Assonleville, to the stranger, in order to 
 learn the details of the scheme. Assonleville had accord- 
 ingly an interview with Gerard, in which he requested the 
 young man to draw up a statement of his plan in writing, and 
 this was done upon the nth of April, 1584. 
 
 In this letter Gerard explained his plan of introducing 
 himself to the notice of Orange, at Delft, as the son of an 
 executed Calvinist; as himself warmly, though secretly, de- 
 voted to the Reformed faith, and as desirous, therefore, of 
 placing himself in the Prince's service, in order to avoid the 
 insolence of the Papists. Having gained the confidence of 
 those about the Prince, he would suggest to them the great 
 use which might be made of Mansfeld's signet in forging 
 passports for spies and other persons whom it might be de- 
 sirous to send into the territory of the royalists. " With these 
 or similar feints and frivolities," continued Gerard, "he 
 should soon obtain access to the person of the said Nassau," 
 repeating his protestation that nothing had moved him to his 
 enterprise " save the good zeal which be bore to the faith and 
 true religion guarded by the Holy Mother Church Catholic, 
 Apostolic, and Roman, and to the service of his Majesty." 
 He begged pardon for having purloined the impressions of 
 the seals a turpitude which he would never have committed, 
 but would sooner have suffered a thousand deaths, except for 
 the great end in view. He particularly wished forgiveness 
 for that crime before going to his task, " in order that he 
 might confess, and receive the holy communion at the coming 
 Easter, without scruples of conscience." He likewise begged 
 the Prince of Parma to obtain for him absolution from his 
 Holiness for this crime of pilfering the more so " as he was 
 about to keep company for some time with heretics and athe- 
 ists, and in some sort to conform himself to their customs." 
 
 From the general tone of the letters of Gerard, he might 
 be set down at once as a simple, religious fanatic, who felt sure 
 that, in executing the command of Philip publicly issued to 
 all the murderers of Europe, he was meriting well of God and 
 his King. There is no doubt that he was an exalted enthu- 
 siast, but not purely an enthusiast. The man's character 
 offers more than one point of interest, as a psychological 
 phenomenon. He had convinced himself that the work which
 
 THE ASSASSINATION OF WILLIAM THE SILENT. 231 
 
 he had in hand was eminently meritorious, and he was utterly 
 without fear of consequences. He was, however, by no means 
 so disinterested as he chose to represent himself in letters 
 which, as he instinctively felt, were to be of perennial interest. 
 On the contrary, in his interviews with Assonleville, he urged 
 that he was a poor fellow, and that he had undertaken this 
 enterprise in order to acquire property, to make himself 
 rich, and that he depended upon the Prince of Parma's 
 influence in obtaining the reward promised by the Ban to the 
 individual who should put Orange to death. 
 
 This second letter decided Parma so far that he authorized 
 Assonleville to encourage the young man in his attempt, and 
 to promise that the reward should be given to him in case of 
 success, and to his heirs in the event of his death. Assonle- 
 ville, in the second interview, accordingly made known these 
 assurances in the strongest manner to Gerard, warning him, 
 at the same time, on no account, if arrested, to inculpate the 
 Prince of Parma. The councilor, while thus exhorting the 
 stranger, according to Alexander's commands, confined him- 
 self, however, to generalities, refusing even to advance fifty 
 crowns, which Balthazar had begged from the Governor- 
 General in order to provide for the necessary expenses of 
 his project. Parma had made similar advances too often 
 to men who had promised to assassinate the Prince and had 
 then done little, and he was resolute in his refusal to this 
 new adventurer, of whom he expected absolutely nothing. 
 Gerard, notwithstanding this rebuff, was not disheartened. 
 " I will provide myself out of my own purse," said he to 
 Assonleville, " and within six weeks you will hear of me." 
 " Go forth, my son," said Assonleville, paternally, upon this 
 spirited reply, " and if you succeed in your enterprise, the 
 King will fulfill all his promises, and you will gain an im- 
 mortal name besides." 
 
 The " inveterate deliberation," thus thoroughly matured, 
 Gerard now proceeded to carry into effect. He came to 
 Delft, obtained a hearing of Villers, the clergyman and inti- 
 mate friend of Orange, showed him the Mansfeld seals, and 
 was, somewhat against his will, sent to France, to exhibit 
 them to Marechal Biron, who, it was thought, was soon to be 
 appointed governor of Cambray. Through Orange's recom- 
 mendation, the Burgundian was received into the suite of Noel
 
 232 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 de Caron, Seigneur de Schoneval, then setting forth on a 
 special mission to the Duke of Anjou. While in France, 
 Gerard could rest neither by day nor night, so tormented 
 was he by the desire of accomplishing his project, and at 
 length he obtained permission, upon the death of the Duke, to 
 carry this important intelligence to the Prince of Orange. 
 The dispatches having been entrusted to him, he traveled post- 
 haste to Delft, and, to his astonishment, the letters had 
 hardly been delivered before he was summoned in person to 
 the chamber of the Prince. Here was an opportunity such 
 as he had never dared to hope for. The arch-enemy to the 
 Church and to the human race, whose death would confer 
 upon his destroyer wealth and nobility in this world, besides 
 a crown of glory in the next, lay unarmed, alone, in bed, be- 
 fore the man who had thirsted seven long years for his blood. 
 
 Balthazar could scarcely control his emotions sufficiently to 
 answer the questions which the Prince addressed to him con- 
 cerning the death of Anjou, but Orange, deeply engaged with 
 the dispatches, and with the reflections which their deeply- 
 important contents suggested, did not observe the counte- 
 nance of the humble Calvinist exile, who had been re- 
 cently recommended to his patronage by Villers. Gerard had, 
 moreover, made no preparation for an interview so entirely 
 unexpected, had come unarmed, and had formed no plan for 
 escape. He was obliged to forego his prey when most within 
 his reach, and after communicating all the information which 
 the Prince required, he was dismissed from the chamber. 
 
 It was Sunday morning, and the bells were tolling for 
 church. Upon leaving the house, he loitered about the court- 
 yard, furtively examining the premises, so that a sergeant of 
 halberdiers asked him why he was waiting there. Balthazar 
 meekly replied that he was desirous of attending divine 
 worship in the church opposite, but added, pointing to his 
 shabby and travel-stained attire, that, without at least a new 
 pair of shoes and stockings, he was unfit to join the congre- 
 gation. Insignificant as ever, the small, pious, dusty stranger 
 excited no suspicion in the mind of the good-natured sergeant. 
 He forthwith spoke of the wants of Gerard to an officer, by 
 whom they were communicated to Orange himself, and the 
 Prince instantly ordered a sum of money to be given him.
 
 THE ASSASSINATION OF WILLIAM THE STLENT. 233 
 
 Thus Balthazar obtained from William's charity what Parma's 
 thrift had denied a fund for carrying out his purpose ! 
 
 Next morning, with the money thus procured, he purchased 
 a pair of pistols, or small carabines, from a soldier, chaffering 
 long about the price because the vender could not supply a 
 particular kind of chopped bullets or slugs which he desired. 
 Before the sunset of the following day that soldier had stabbed 
 himself to the heart, and died despairing, on hearing for what 
 purpose the pistols had been bought. 
 
 On Tuesday, the loth of July, 1584, at about half past 
 twelve, the Prince, with his wife on his arm, and followed 
 by the ladies and gentlemen of his family, was going to the 
 dining-room. William the Silent was dressed upon that day, 
 according to his usual custom, in very plain fashion. He wore 
 a wide-leaved, loosely-shaped hat of dark felt, with a silken 
 cord round the crown such as had been worn by the Beggars 
 in the early days of the revolt. A high ruff encircled his 
 neck, from which also depended one of the Beggars' medals, 
 with the motto, " Fideles au roy jusqu'b la besace," while a 
 loose surcoat of gray frieze cloth, over a tawny leather doub- 
 let, with wide, slashed underclothes, completed his costume. 
 Gerard presented himself at the doorway, and demanded a 
 passport. The Princess, struck with the pale and agitated 
 countenance of the man, anxiously questioned her husband 
 concerning the stranger. The Prince carelessly observed that 
 " it was merely a person who came for a passport," ordering, 
 at the same time, a secretary forthwith to prepare one. The 
 Princess, still not relieved, observed in an undertone that 
 " she had never seen so villainous a countenance." Orange, 
 however, not at all impressed with the appearance of Gerard, 
 conducted himself at table with his usual cheerfulness, con- 
 versing much with the burgomaster of Leewarden, the only 
 guest present at the family dinner, concerning the political 
 and religious aspects of Friesland. At two o'clock the 
 company rose from table. The Prince led the way, intending 
 to pass to his private apartments above. The dining-room, 
 which was on the ground floor, opened into a little square 
 vestibule, which communicated, through an arched passage- 
 way, with the main entrance into the courtyard. This vesti- 
 bule was also directly at the foot of the wooden staircase 
 leading to the next floor, and was scarcely six feet in width.
 
 234 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 Upon its left side, as one approached the stairway, was an 
 obscure arch, sunk deep in the wall, and completely in the 
 shadow of the door. Behind this arch a portal opened to the 
 narrow lane at the side of the house. The stairs themselves 
 were completely lighted by a large window, half way up the 
 flight. The Prince came from the dining-room, and began 
 leisurely to ascend. He had only reached the second stair, 
 when a man emerged from the sunken arch, and, standing 
 within a foot or two of him, discharged a pistol full at his 
 heart. Three balls entered his body, one of which, passing 
 quite through him, struck with violence against the wall 
 beyond. The Prince exclaimed in French, as he felt the 
 wound, " O my God, have mercy upon my soul ! O my God. 
 have mercy upon this poor people !" 
 
 These were the last words he ever spoke, save that when 
 his sister, Catherine of Schwartzburg, immediately afterwards 
 asked him if he commended his soul to Jesus Christ, he faintly 
 answered, " Yes." His master of the horse, Jacob van 
 Maldere, had caught him in his arms as the fatal shot was 
 fired. The Prince was then placed on the stairs for an 
 instant, when he immediately began to swoon. He was after- 
 wards laid upon a couch in the dining-room, where in a few 
 minutes, he breathed his last in the arms of his wife and 
 sister. 
 
 The murderer succeeded in making his escape through the 
 side door, and sped swiftly up the narrow lane. He had 
 almost reached the ramparts, from which he intended to spring 
 into the moat, when he stumbled over a heap of rubbish. As 
 he rose, he was seized by several pages and halberdiers, who 
 had pursued him from the house. He had dropped his pistols 
 upon the spot where he had committed the crime, and upon 
 his person were found a couple of bladders, provided with a 
 piece of pipe with which he had intended to assist himself 
 across the moat, beyond which a horse was waiting for him. 
 He made no effort to deny his identity, but boldly avowed 
 himself and his deed. He was brought back to the house, 
 where he immediately underwent a preliminary examination 
 before the city magistrates. He was afterwards subjected to 
 excruciating tortures; for the fury against the wretch who had 
 destroyed the Father of the country was uncontrollable, and
 
 THE ASSASSINATION OF WILLIAM THE SILENT. 235 
 
 William the Silent was no longer alive to intercede as he had 
 often done before in behalf of those who assailed his life. 
 
 The organization of Balthazar Gerard would furnish a 
 subject of profound study, both for the physiologist and the 
 metaphysician. Neither wholly a fanatic, nor entirely a 
 ruffian, he combined the most dangerous elements of both 
 characters. In his puny body and mean exterior were en- 
 closed considerable mental powers and accomplishments, a 
 daring ambition, and a courage almost superhuman. Yet 
 those qualities led him only to form upon the threshold of life 
 a deliberate determination to achieve greatness by the assas- 
 sin's trade. The rewards held out by the Ban, combining with 
 his religious bigotry and his passion for distinction, fixed all 
 his energies with patient concentration upon the one great 
 purpose for which he seemed to have been born, and after 
 seven years' preparation, he had at last fulfilled his design. 
 
 Upon being interrogated by the magistrates, he manifested 
 neither despair nor contrition, but rather a quiet exultation. 
 "Like David," he said, "he had slain Goliath of Gath." 
 When falsely informed that his victim was not dead, he 
 showed no credulity or disappointment. He had discharged 
 three poisoned balls into the Prince's stomach, and he knew 
 that death must have already ensued. He expressed regret, 
 however, that the resistance of the halberdiers had prevented 
 him from using his second pistol, and avowed that if he were 
 a thousand leagues away, he would return in order to do the 
 deed again, if possible. He deliberately wrote a detailed con- 
 fession of his crime, and of the motives and manner of its 
 commission, taking care, however, not to implicate Parma 
 in the transaction. After sustaining day after day the most 
 horrible tortures, he subsequently related his interviews with 
 Assonleville and with the president of the Jesuit college at 
 Treves, adding that he had been influenced in his work by 
 the assurance of obtaining the rewards promised by the Ban. 
 During the intervals of repose from the rack he conversed 
 with ease, and even eloquence, answering all questions ad- 
 dressed to him with apparent sincerity. His constancy in 
 suffering so astounded his judges that they believed him sup- 
 ported by witchcraft. " Ecce homo !" he exclaimed, from time 
 to time, with insane blasphemy, as he raised his blood-stream-
 
 236 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 ing head from the bench. In order to destroy the charm 
 which seemed to render him insensible to pain, they sent for 
 the shirt of a hospital patient, supposed to be a sorcerer. 
 When clothed in this garment, however, Balthazar was none 
 the less superior to the arts of the tormentors, enduring all 
 their inflictions, according to an eye-witness, " without once 
 exclaiming, Ah me !" and avowing that he would repeat his 
 enterprise, if possible, were he to die a thousand deaths in 
 consequence. Some of those present refused to believe that 
 he was a man at all. Others asked him how long since he 
 had sold himself to the devil, to which he replied, mildly, 
 that he had no acquaintance whatever with the devil. He 
 thanked the judges politely for the food which he received 
 in prison, and promised to recompense them for the favor. 
 Upon being asked how that was possible, he replied, that he 
 would serve as their advocate in Paradise. 
 
 The Thirty Years' War. 
 
 Chas. F. Home in The Story of the Greatest Notion*. 
 
 From the year 1618 to the year 1648, there raged a war i 
 the central parts of Europe which reduced the population of 
 Germany from fifteen million to less than five million. 
 
 What was the cause of such a ferocious and devastating 
 and long-lasting feud? It was religious fanaticism and hatred. 
 The Emperor of Germany, who at that time was entirely under 
 the influence of the Jesuits and was stirred up to intense hatred 
 against Protestantism by his Roman Catholic advisers, thought 
 that he could force all his Lutheran subjects back into the sect 
 of Rome. What a spectacle ! The man who was elected, 
 crowned, placed under oath, and paid to protect his people, perse- 
 cuting them, robbing them, murdering them, and driving them 
 from their homes and families ! That is how Roman Catholic 
 superstition makes faithless persecutors of those who should be 
 protectors. 
 
 Ferdinand had crushed 'Protestantism in every estate he 
 owned. In 1615, he and Matthias began, or at least permitted, 
 measures for its repression in Bohemia. There were tumults,
 
 THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR. 237 
 
 uprisings, and on May 23, 1618, a party of angry citizens 
 of Prague burst into the council hall, seized Slavata and 
 Martinitz, the two most obnoxious of the Catholic leaders, 
 and hurled them from the window. It was an ancient form 
 of Bohemian punishment, which had been used by Ziska and 
 by others. The window this time was over eighty feet from 
 the ground, yet the fall did not prove fatal. The men landed 
 on a soft rubbish heap below, and one was unhurt; the other, 
 though much injured, survived. Their secretary was hurled 
 after them, and is said to have apologized to his masters, 
 even as he landed, for his unavoidable discourtesy in alight- 
 ing upon them. 
 
 This semicomic tragedy opened the Thirty Years' War. 
 At first the struggle was confined to Bohemia and Austria. 
 The other states, secure in the fact that four fifths of the 
 populace of the empire was Protestant, looked on with seem- 
 ing indifference. The Bohemians drove the scattered im- 
 perial troops from their country. 
 
 Meanwhile Matthias died, and Ferdinand was elected to 
 the imperial throne as Ferdinand II (1619-1637). The Bo- 
 hemians besieged him in Vienna. The Protestant Austrian 
 nobles turned against him, and a deputation forced its way 
 into the presence of the helpless Emperor, and insisted on 
 his signing for them a grant of political and religious liberty. 
 Ferdinand resolutely refused ; the deputation grew threat- 
 ening. One fierce noble seized the Emperor roughly by the 
 coat front, crying, with an offensive nickname for Ferdinand, 
 " Sign it, Nandel !" A trumpet from the castle-yard in- 
 terrupted them. It signaled the arrival of a body of im- 
 perial troops, who had slipped through the lines of the be- 
 siegers, and had come to the Emperor's rescue. 
 
 The Austrian nobles withdrew. Spanish and Cossack 
 troops were called by Ferdinand into the country to crush 
 all opposition. The Bohemians, wasted by famine and plague, 
 retreated into their own land, and the war continued there. 
 The people offered the Bohemian throne to Frederick, the 
 elector of the Rhenish Palatinate, and a son-in-law of the 
 English king, James I. ' 
 
 Frederick accepted, went to Bohemia in state, and tried 
 to draw the other Protestant princes to his help. But he
 
 238 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 was a Calvinist, so the Lutherans refused to join him. His 
 new subjects were mainly Lutherans also, and his impolitic 
 effort to enforce his religious views upon Prague soon aroused 
 the citizens to a state of revolt against him. 
 
 The Catholic princes of the empire had long been united 
 in a " League," with Bavaria at its head. Bavaria was, next 
 to Austria, the most powerful state of the empire, and it had 
 become the stronghold of the Roman faith in Germany. 
 Now, the army of this League, under its chief, Maximilian 
 of Bavaria, offered its services to the Emperor against the 
 disunited and wavering Bohemians. A portion of the Bo- 
 hemian army was defeated at the battle of White Mountain, 
 just outside of Prague. Frederick, the newly elected Bo- 
 hemian king, saw his troops come fleeing back to the town, 
 and their panic seems to have seized him also. Abandoning 
 the strong walled city, he swept such of his possessions 
 together as he could, and fled in haste from Bohemia. " The 
 Winter King " his enemies called him in derision, because 
 his kingship had lasted but one short winter. 
 
 The citizens, disheartened by his flight, terrified by the 
 overwhelming forces arrayed against them, surrendered to 
 Ferdinand. Executions, proscriptions, banishments, followed 
 without number. Every person of the land was compelled to 
 accept Catholicism. Many burned their homes with their 
 own hands, and fled to other countries. Seldom has liberty 
 been so utterly trampled under foot; seldom has a land been 
 so completely subjugated. The Bohemians, who had been 
 one of the most intellectual, energetic peoples of Europe, 
 here practically disappeared from history as a separate 
 nation. 
 
 We turn now to the second period of the deplorable war. 
 Its scene shifts to the domain of the unhappy Frederick upon 
 the Rhine. He himself fled to Holland, but his land was con- 
 sidered as forfeited, and was deliberately desolated by 
 Spanish troops in the service of the Emperor. The Bo- 
 hemians had employed a well-known leader of mercenary 
 troops, Count Mansfeld. When their cause was lost, Mans- 
 feld, with most of his army, amused the Catholic forces by 
 negotiations, till he saw his opportunity, when he slipped 
 away from them, and led his army to the Rhine. There he 
 continued the war in Frederick's name, though really for
 
 THE THIRTY YEARS* WAR. 239 
 
 his own sake. His troops supported themselves by pillaging 
 the country, and the wretched inhabitants of Frederick's Pal- 
 atinate were treated almost as mercilessly by their pretended 
 friends as by their open foes. 
 
 The peasants of Upper Austria also rebelled against Fer- 
 dinand's efforts to force his religion upon them. For a 
 time it seemed they would be as successful as the Swiss moun- 
 taineers had been. Under a peasant named Fadinger they 
 gained several impressive victories; but he was killed, and 
 their cause collapsed into ruin. In its last stages their 
 struggle was taken up by an unknown leader, who was called 
 simply " the Student." But it was too late. Remarkable and 
 romantic as was the Student's career, his exploits and vic- 
 tories could not save the cause, and he perished at the head 
 of his followers. 
 
 Meanwhile, the war along the Rhine assumed more and 
 more the savage character that made it so destructive to the 
 land. Mansfeld, driven from the Palatinate, supported his 
 ferocious troops almost entirely by plundering. Tilly, the 
 chief general of the Catholic League, followed similar tactics, 
 and, wherever they passed, the land lay ruined behind them. 
 Some of the lesser Protestant princes joined Mansfeld, but 
 Tilly proved a great military leader, and his opponents were 
 slowly crowded back into Northern Germany. The Em- 
 peror forced his religion upon the Rhine districts, as he had 
 upon Bohemia and Austria. The Protestant world at last 
 began to take alarm. Both England and Holland lent Mans- 
 feld support. The King of Denmark, drawing as many of 
 the Protestant German princes as possible to his side, joined 
 vigorously in the contest. 
 
 This Danish struggle may be considered the third period 
 of the war. It lasted from about 1625 to 1629, and intro- 
 duces one of the two most remarkable men of the period. 
 
 Albert of Waldstein, of Wallenstein, as he is generally 
 called, was a native of Bohemia, who joined the Catholics, 
 and won military fame and experience fighting on tKe im- 
 perial side in the Bohemian war. He acquired vast wealth 
 through marriage and the purchase of the confiscated Prot- 
 estant estates. Proving a remarkably capable financial man- 
 ager, he was soon the richest subject in the empire, and was 
 created Duke of Friedland, a district of Bohemia.
 
 240 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 All of these successes were to Wallenstein mere prelim- 
 inary steps to an even more boundless ambition. He studied 
 the political outlook, and his keen eye saw the possibility of 
 vastly expanding Mansfeld's barbaric system of supporting 
 his soldiers by plunder. The Emperor Ferdinand had but few 
 troops of his own, and they were needed for quelling rebel- 
 lion within his personal domains. For carrying on the war 
 along the Rhine, he was entirely dependent upon the princes 
 of the Catholic League and their army under Tilly. 
 
 Wallenstein now came forward and offered to supply the 
 Emperor with a powerful imperial army which should not 
 cost him a penny. This offer, coming from a mere private 
 gentleman, sounded absurd; and for a time Wallenstein 
 was put aside with contemptuous laughter. At last the Em- 
 peror told him, if he thought he could raise as many as ten 
 thousand men, to go ahead. " If I had only ten thousand," 
 said Wallenstein, " we must accept what people choose to 
 give us. If I have thirty thousand, we can take what we 
 like." 
 
 The answer makes plain his whole system. His troops 
 supported and paid themselves at the expense of the neigh- 
 borhood where they were quartered. If it was a district 
 which upheld the Emperor, they took " contributions to the 
 necessity of the empire." If the land opposed him, no polite 
 words were needed to justify its pillage. Within three months 
 Wallenstein had nearly fifty thousand men under his stand- 
 ard, drawn to him by the tempting offers of plunder that his 
 agents held out. If the war had been terrible before, im- 
 agine the awful phase it now assumed, and the blighting 
 curse that fell upon unhappy Germany ! 
 
 Modern justice can find little to choose thereafter between 
 the methods of the opposing armies. We speak, therefore, 
 only of the martial genius which Wallenstein displayed. He 
 completely outmanoeuvered Mansfeld, defeated him, and drove 
 him to flight and death. Then Wallenstein and Tilly proceeded 
 to destroy the high military reputation of the Danish King. 
 He was overcome in battle after battle, and his land so 
 completely devastated that he prayed for peace on any terms. 
 
 Peace seemed indeed at hand. The remaining Lutheran 
 states of Saxony and Brandenburg, which had been neutral 
 and were as yet almost unharmed, dared not interfere. The
 
 THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR. 241 
 
 Emperor Ferdinand might have arranged everything as he 
 chose had he used his power with moderation. But his hopes 
 had grown with his fortunes, and he seemed to have planned 
 the establishment of such an absolute power over Germany 
 as had been the aim of his ancestor, Charles V. Ferdinand 
 passed laws and gave decrees, without any pretense of calling 
 a council or seeking the approval of the princes. His general, 
 Wallenstein, was given one of the conquered states as his 
 dukedom; and Wallenstein declared openly that his master 
 had no further need of councils ; the time had come for 
 Germany to be governed as were France and Spain. 
 
 The Catholic princes, with Maximilian of Bavaria at their 
 head, became frightened by the giant they themselves had 
 created, and began to take measures for their own preserva- 
 tion. They demanded that Wallenstein be removed from 
 his command. The Emperor, perhaps himself afraid of his 
 too powerful general, finally consented. 
 
 There still remained, however, the serious question 
 whether Wallenstein would accept his dismissal. His huge 
 and ever growing army was absolutely under his control. 
 His influence over the troops was extraordinary. A firm 
 believer in astrology, he asserted that the stars promised him 
 certain success, and his followers believed him. Tall and thin, 
 dark and solemn, silent and grim, wearing a scarlet coat and 
 a long, blood-red feather in his hat, he was declared by pop- 
 ular superstition to be in league with the devil, invulnerable 
 and unconquerable. No evil act of his soldiery did he ever 
 rebuke. Only two things he demanded of them absolute 
 obedience and unshaken daring. The man who flinched or 
 disobeyed was executed on the instant. Otherwise the ma- 
 rauders might desecrate God's earth with whatsoever hideous 
 crimes they would. His troops laughed at the idea of being 
 Catholics or Protestants, Germans or Bohemians; they were 
 " Wallensteiners " and nothing else. 
 
 Even Ferdinand would scarcely have dared oppose his 
 overgrown servant, had not Wallenstein failed in an attempt 
 to capture Stralsund. This little Baltic seaport held out 
 against the assaults of his entire army. Wallenstein vowed 
 that he would capture it " though it were fastened by chains 
 to heaven." But each mad attack of his wild troopers was 
 beaten back from the walls by the desperate townsfolk ; and 
 
 16
 
 242 THE VOICE OF HISTORY.. 
 
 at last, with twelve thousand of his men dead, he retreated 
 from before the stubborn port. A superstitious load was 
 lifted from the minds even of those who pretended to be his 
 friends. Wallenstein was not unconquerable. 
 
 He accepted the Emperor's notice of removal with haughty 
 disdain. He said he had already seen it in the stars that evil 
 men had sowed dissension between him and his sovereign, 
 but the end was not yet. He retired to his vast estates in 
 Bohemia, and lived at Prague with a magnificence exceeding 
 that of any court in Germany. His table was always set 
 for a hundred guests. He had sixty pages of the noblest 
 families to wait upon him. For chamberlains and other 
 household officials, he had men who came from similar places 
 under the Emperor. 
 
 Meanwhile a new defender had sprung up for exhausted 
 Protestantism. Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden, invaded 
 Germany in 1630, and called on the Protestants to help him 
 in the fight to save their faith. All Europe had grown afraid 
 of the tremendous and increasing power of the Hapsburg 
 Emperor. Not only was Protestant England in league with 
 the Swedes, but Catholic France, under its shrewd minister, 
 Richelieu, also upheld them. Still the burden of actual 
 fighting fell upon Gustavus Adolphus, who proved himself 
 the greatest military leader of the age, and, in the eyes of 
 Protestant Europe, the noblest and sublimest man since 
 Luther. 
 
 It is not our province to analyze the motives of the 
 Swedish King, the " Lion of the North," as he is called. 
 How much he was actuated by ambition, how much by re- 
 ligion, perhaps he himself might have found it hard to say. 
 His coming marks the turning-point of the contest ; his 
 brilliant achievements constitute the fourth period of the war. 
 
 Tilly opposed him with the army of the Catholic League 
 Tilly, the victor of thirty desperate battles. The Emperor 
 and his court laughed, and, thinking of the Bohemian King 
 and the Dane, said, " Another of these snow kings has come 
 against us. He, too, will melt in our southern sun." 
 
 The Protestant princes hesitated, fearing to join Gus- 
 tavus ; he was hampered on every side. Tilly in his very face 
 stormed the great Protestant city of Magdeburg, and sacked 
 it with such merciless brutalities as raised a cry of horrified
 
 THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR. 243 
 
 disgust, even in the age of atrocities. " Never was such a 
 victory," wrote Tilly to the Emperor, " since the storming 
 of Troy or of Jerusalem. I am sorry you and the ladies of 
 the court were not there to enjoy the spectacle." A heap 
 of blackened ruins, hiding a few hundred famished and broken 
 outcasts, was all that remained of a splendid and prosperous 
 city of forty thousand souls. 
 
 Tilly's object in this bloody deed seems to have been to 
 terrify the rest of Protestant Germany into submission. If 
 so, he failed of his purpose. Gustavus promptly abandoned 
 gentle measures, and by a threat of force compelled the Saxon 
 Elector to join him. He then met Tilly in a fierce battle 
 near Leipsic and utterly defeated him. Tilly fled, and his 
 army was almost annihilated, the fugitives who escaped the 
 Swedes falling victims to the vengeance of the enraged Prot- 
 estant peasantry. Few men who had taken part in the sack" 
 of Magdeburg lived long to boast of their achievement. 
 
 Gustavus swept victoriously through all the Rhineland. 
 One Catholic prince or bishop after another was defeated. 
 .The advance soon became little more than a triumphal pro- 
 cession, city after city opening its gates to welcome him. 
 The Saxon army conquered Bohemia; Gustavus reached 
 Bavaria. 
 
 There, on the southern bank of the River Lech, the Ba- 
 varian army under Tilly and Prince Maximilian was drawn 
 to oppose the passage of the Protestant troops. It seemed im- 
 possible to cross the broad and deep stream in the face of such 
 a force and such a general. Gustavus kept up a tremendous 
 cannonade for three days. He burned great fires along the 
 shore, that the smoke might conceal his movements. Tilly 
 was struck down by a cannon-ball, the whole Bavarian army 
 fell into confusion, and the Swedes rushed across the river 
 almost unopposed. Maximilian fled with his army; and 
 Bavaria, which as yet had escaped the horrors of the war, 
 was in its turn plundered by an enemy. 
 
 The stars in their courses seemed indeed to fight for 
 Wallenstein. From the moment that he was deprived of 
 his command, the triumphant cause of the Emperor had 
 fallen, fallen until now it lay in utter ruin. The Saxons 
 held Bohemia ; all Western Germany was in Gustavus' hands ;
 
 244 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 nothing interposed between the conquerors and defenseless 
 Austria nothing but Wallenstein. 
 
 Messenger after messenger sped from the Emperor to 
 his offended general, entreating him to reaccept his command. 
 Wallenstein dallied, and postponed his consent, until he had 
 wrung from his despairing sovereign such terms as never 
 general secured before or since. Practically Wallenstein be- 
 came as exalted in authority as the Emperor himself, and 
 wholly independent of his former master. He was to carry 
 on the war or to make peace entirely as he saw fit, without 
 interference of any sort. Certain provinces of Austria were 
 given him to hold as a guarantee of the Emperor's good 
 faith. 
 
 The mere raising of the great general's standard drew 
 around him another army of " Wallensteiners," with whom 
 he marched against Gustavus. Two of the ablest military 
 leaders in history were thus pitted against each other. TEere 
 were clever marches and countermarches, partial, indecisive 
 attacks, and at last a great culminating battle at Luetzen, 
 in Saxony, November 6, 1632. 
 
 Gustavus won; but he perished on the field. He was 
 always exposing himself in battle, and at Luetzen he gal- 
 loped across in front of his army from one wing to another. 
 A shot struck him a traitor shot, say some, from his own 
 German allies. He fell from his horse, and a band of the 
 opposing cavalry encircled and slew him, not knowing who 
 he was. His Swedes, who adored him, pressed furiously for- 
 ward to save or avenge their leader. The Wallensteiners, 
 after a desperate struggle, broke and fled before the resist- 
 less attack. 
 
 Wallenstein himself, his hat and cloak riddled with bul- 
 lets, rushed in vain among his men, taunting them furiously 
 with their cowardice. It was only the night and the death 
 of Gustavus that prevented the Swedes from reaping the full 
 fruits of their victory. The imperial troops retreated un- 
 pursued. Wallenstein held a savage court-martial, and exe- 
 cuted all of his men whom he could prove had been among 
 the first in flight. 
 
 From this time the war enters on its fifth stage. Wallen- 
 stein did little more fighting. He withdrew his troops into 
 Bohemia, and it is hard to say what purposes simmered in
 
 THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR. 245 
 
 his dark and inscrutable brain. He certainly was no longer 
 loyal to the Emperor; probably the Emperor plotted against 
 him. Wallenstein seemed to have contemplated making 
 himself king of an independent Bohemian kingdom. At any 
 rate, he broke openly with his sovereign, and at a great ban- 
 quet persuaded his leading officers to sign an oath that they 
 would stand by him in whatever he did. Some of the more 
 timid among them warned the Emperor, and with his approval 
 formed a trap for Wallenstein. The general's chief lieuten- 
 ants were suddenly set upon and slain; then the murderers 
 rushed to Wallenstein's own apartments. Hearing them com- 
 ing, he stood up dauntlessly, threw wide his arms to their 
 blows, and died as silent and mysterious as he had lived. 
 His slayers were richly rewarded by Ferdinand. 
 
 All Germany was weary of the war. The contending 
 parties had fought each other to a standstill; and, had Ger- 
 many alone been concerned, peace would certainly have fol- 
 lowed. But the Swedes, abandoning Gustavus' higher policy, 
 continued the war for what increase of territory they could 
 get; and France helped herself to what German cities she 
 could in Alsace and Lorraine. So the war went on, the 
 German princes taking sides now with this one, now with 
 the other, and nobody apparently ever thinking of the poor 
 peasantry. 
 
 The spirit of the brutal soldiery grew ever more atrocious. 
 Their captives were tortured to death for punishment or for 
 ransom, or, it is to be feared, for the mere amusement of 
 the bestial captors. The open country became everywhere a 
 wilderness. The soldiers themselves began starving in the 
 dismal desert. 
 
 The Emperor, Ferdinand II, the cause of all this destruc- 
 tion, died in 1637, and was succeeded by his son, Ferdinand 
 III (1637-1657). The war still continued, though in a feeble, 
 listless way, with no decisive victories on either side, until 
 the Peace of Westphalia, in 1648. This peace placed Prot- 
 estants and Catholics on an equal footing of toleration 
 throughout the empire. It gave Sweden what territory she 
 wanted in the north, and France what she asked toward the 
 Rhine. Switzerland and Holland were acknowledged as 
 independent lands. The importance of the smaller princes 
 was increased, they, too, becoming practically independent,
 
 246 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 and the power of the emperors was all but destroyed. From 
 this time the importance of the Hapsburgs rested solely on 
 their personal possessions in Austria, Hungary, and Bo- 
 hemia. The title of emperor remained little better than a 
 name. 
 
 Indeed. Germany itself had become scarcely more than a 
 name. During those terrible thirty years the population of 
 the land is said to have dwindled from fifteen millions to 
 less than five millions. In the Palatinate less than fifty thou- 
 sand people remained, where there had been five hundred 
 thousand. Whole districts everywhere lay utterly waste, 
 wild, and uninhabited. Men killed themselves to escape 
 starvation, or slew their brothers for a fragment of bread. 
 A full description of the horrors of that awful time will 
 never be written ; much has been mercifully obliterated. 
 The material progress of Germany, its students say, was re- 
 tarded by two centuries' growth. To this day the land has 
 not fully recovered from the exhaustion of that awful war. 
 
 Grustavus Adolphus His Triumph and Death. 
 
 Benjamin Chapman in The Great Events. 
 
 Gustavus Adolphus was the Protestant hero who came to 
 the rescue of his German coreligionists in the great Thirty 
 Years' War (i6i8-'48). It is difficult to overestimate the 
 devastating ravages of that war, or rather series of wars. Re- 
 ligious conviction, faith, superstition, fanaticism, tyranny, per- 
 sonal ambition, and malicious intrigue struggled in one fearful 
 melee. And to this day, there are parts of Europe that have not 
 entirely recovered from that fierce and desolating strife. It 
 was a time when great soldiers had the opportunity to display 
 each his military genius, but among them all Gustavus Adolphus 
 shines as a star of the first magnitude. Cardinal Richelieu, 
 though, as a Catholic, an opponent of Gustavus, yet says of him : 
 " Those who look for spots on the sun, and find something 
 reprehensible, even in virtue itself, blame this king." 
 
 On October 30, Gustavus sent Bernhard, Duke of Saxe- 
 Weimar, forward with eleven thousand men to observe Pap-
 
 GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS HIS TRIUMPH AND DEATH. 247 
 
 penheim. The Duke took the road by Buttstadt to Frei- 
 burg, and from thence, after crossing the Saale, to Naum- 
 burg, where he arrived just in time to anticipate the enemy. 
 
 The next day the King gave the military command at 
 Erfurt to Dupadel, and proceeded himself to Naumburg. 
 Here the joy and confidence which his presence inspired, 
 " As if he had been a God," far from elating him, awakened 
 only in his mind a feeling of humility and a sorrowful pre- 
 sentiment that some disaster to himself would soon convince 
 the Naumburgers of the frailty of the idol in whom they 
 trusted. 
 
 On Sunday, November 14, he learned, by an intercepted 
 letter, that Pappenheim had been sent to Halle, and that the 
 next day the imperial army was to leave Weissenfels. He 
 would now have attacked Wallenstein at once; but the dis- 
 suasions of Kniphausen it is said prevailed, and he agreed 
 to defer the hazard of a battle until he should have been re- 
 enforced by George of Luneburg and the Elector of Saxony. 
 
 Accordingly, having written to the Elector, who lay at 
 Torgau, to meet him at Eilenburg, he was himself marching 
 to Pegau. in that direction, when some gentlemen and peas- 
 ants of the neighborhood brought him word that Wallen- 
 stein's troops were still quartered in the villages around 
 Luetzen, and that he was not aware of the King's army being 
 on the march. " Then," exclaimed Gustavus, " I verily be- 
 lieve the Lord has delivered him into my hand," and instantly 
 darted toward his prey. 
 
 Luetzen was now in sight ; the peasants said it was close 
 at hand. But it proved more distant than this indefinite ex- 
 pression, or the measure of their own eager gaze, had led the 
 Swedes to calculate. Moreover, a small river, the Rippart, 
 that lay between the King and Luetzen, whose narrow bridge 
 could be only passed by one or two at a time, impeded the' 
 advance full two hours a skirmish with Isolani's cavalry, 
 who were quartered at a village near the bridge, may also 
 have occasioned some little loss of time so that when the 
 Swedish army had reached the fatal field, it was nightfall, 
 and too late to begin the battle. 
 
 Wallenstein made good use of the delay. On the first 
 intelligence of the King's approach he had written to Pappen- 
 heim the letter is still preserved in the archive of Vienna,
 
 248 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 stained with Pappenheim's blood apprising him of the dan- 
 ger, and requiring him to join at daybreak, with every man 
 and gun. During the night and early in the morning, which 
 proved very misty, he mustered his troops and made his 
 disposition, deepening the drains by the high-roads to form 
 intrenchments for his musketeers. 
 
 The King passed the night in his carriage, chiefly in con- 
 versation with his generals. Early in the morning he had 
 prayers read to himself by his chaplain, Fabricius. The 
 rest of the army sang Luther's hymn, " A Mighty Fortress 
 is our God ;" and Gustavus himself led another hymn " Jesus 
 Christ, our Savior, He overcame death." 
 
 The King mounted his horse without having broken his 
 fast. He wore a plain buff coat, without armor; replying, 
 it is said, to some remark upon this deficiency, that " God 
 was his harness." He addressed a few words of encourage- 
 ment first to the Swedes, then to the Germans of his army, 
 and to this effect: "My brave and beloved subjects!" he 
 said to the Swedish regiments, " now is the time to prove your 
 discipline and courage, confirmed in many a fight. Yonder 
 is the enemy you have sought so long, not now sheltered by 
 strong ramparts, nor posted on inaccessible heights, but 
 ranged in fair and open field. Advance, then, by God's help, 
 not so much to fight as to conquer. Spare not your blood, 
 your lives, for your King, your country, your God; and the 
 present and eternal blessing of the Almighty, and an illus- 
 trious name throughout the Christian world await you. But 
 if, which God forbid, you prove cowards, I swear that not 
 a bone of you shall return to Sweden. The Lord preserve 
 you all ! " 
 
 To the Germans he said : " My brave allies and fellow- 
 soldiers, I adjure you by your fame, your honor, and your 
 conscience ; by the interests temporal and eternal now at 
 stake; by your former exploits, by the remembrance of Tilly 
 and the Breitenfeld bear yourselves bravely to-day. Let the 
 field before you become illustrious by a similar slaughter. 
 Forward ! I will this day not only be your general, but your 
 comrade. I will not only command you, I will lead you 
 on. Add your efforts to mine. Extort from the enemy, by 
 God's help, that victory of which the chief fruits will be to
 
 GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS HIS TRIUMPH AND DEATH. 24:9 
 
 you and to your children. But if you shrink from the contest, 
 remember that religion, liberty all will be lost, and that 
 by your remissness." 
 
 Having finished his addresses, to which both Swedes and 
 Germans responded by hearty cheers and acclamations, the 
 King cast off his eyes to heaven and said, " Oh, my Lord 
 Jesus ! Son of God, bless these our arms, and this day's bat- 
 tle for Thine own glory and holy name's sake." Then, draw- 
 ing his sword and waving it over his head, he advanced, the 
 foremost of all his army. 
 
 The numbers of the two armies at this moment were 
 probably nearly equal. Diodati, indeed, who carried to the 
 emperor from Wallenstein a verbal report of the battle, which 
 by Ferdinand's order he afterward drew up in writing, stated 
 the Swedish army to have been 25,000 strong, the imperial 
 12,000 only. This is to be understood as referring to the 
 beginning of the engagement before Pappenheim had come 
 up, at which time, on the other hand, Hart and Mauvillon 
 estimate the imperial force at from twenty-eight thousand 
 to thirty thousand men, Gfrorer at 25,000 estimates which 
 are as certainly exaggerations as Diodati's diminution of the 
 truth. Gustavus would not only have departed from his 
 avowed maxims and previous practice, he would have run 
 counter to every sound, strategical principle, had he attacked 
 without necessity an army numerically superior. For that the 
 Swedish army amounted in all to not more than 18,000 men 
 there is as much proof almost as it is possible to attain in 
 such a matter. 
 
 A rough calculation would make Wallenstein and Pappen- 
 heim's whole united force not more than 27,000, unless any 
 reenforcements took place which have not been recorded, 
 or which have escaped my notice. If we estimate Pappen- 
 heim's division at 10,000, this will give 17,000 imperialists 
 on the field before he joined again on the day of the battle. 
 But the Swedish Intelligencer, whose information was de- 
 rived from English officers about the person of Gustavus, 
 conceives that Wallenstein must have had at this time full 
 20,000, or, as he afterward modifies his opinion, that he must 
 have had 30,000 in all, of whom 10,000 or 12,000 were with 
 Pappenheim. 
 
 According to these estimates, then, we may conclude that
 
 250 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 there were in the imperial camp at Luetzen on November 5, 
 from 15,000 to 18,000, or perhaps even 20,000 men. Such 
 numbers offered to Gustavtts, especially under the circum- 
 stances, a strong temptation to attack them, and, the imperial 
 army being so divided, he had a reasonable hope a hope 
 by which he was justified in forcing the engagement 
 that he should be able to defeat successively both divisions. 
 Even as it was, Pappenheim's foot, not arriving soon enough 
 to support, contributed in no small degree to the loss of the 
 battle. 
 
 The field, which was intersected by a canal that unites 
 the Saale and the Elster, called the Flossgraben, was almost 
 a level; but of all the accidents afforded by such ground 
 Wallenstein had taken advantage. Luetzen lay to his right 
 a little in front. Between it and the three windmills close 
 to his right wing intervened some mud-wall gardens. These 
 he made use of as forts, throwing into them little garrisons, 
 and loop-holing the walls. The mill hills he converted into 
 batteries and the dry ditches by the roadside into breastworks 
 for his musketeers. 
 
 The fog having cleared off for a season, at ten o'clock 
 the battle began. The wind and sun were in the King's 
 favor; but Wallenstein had the advantage in weight of ar- 
 tillery and position. Gustavus did not long sustain the can- 
 nonade of the enemy before he gave the order to charge 
 toward the highway and dislodge the musketeers who oc- 
 cupied the ditches on the side of it. This being effected, the 
 whole line continued to advance, and the three infantry 
 brigades of the center took the batteries on the other side of 
 the high road, but, not being supported in time by their cav- 
 alry, who had been impeded by the wayside ditches, lost them 
 again and were compelled to fall back. 
 
 When the King knew that the first battery was taken, 
 he uncovered his head and thanked God, but soon after, 
 learning that the center had been repulsed, he put himself 
 at the head of the Smaland cavalry, and charged the imperial 
 cuirassiers, the "black lads," with whom he had just before 
 told Stalhanske to grapple. Piccolomini hastened to support 
 the cuirassiers ; and the Swedes, being overmatched, retreated 
 without perceiving the fog having again come over that 
 they had left the King in the midst of the enemy. A pistol
 
 GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS HIS TRIUMPH AND DEATH. 251 
 
 ball now broke his arm ; and as the Duke of Lauenburg was 
 supporting him out of the battle, an imperial cuirassier came 
 behind him and shot him in the back. He then fell from 
 his horse; and, other cuirassiers coming up, one of them 
 completed the work of death. 
 
 It is added on the testimony of a young gentleman named 
 Leubelfing, the son of Colonel Leubelfing, of Nuremberg, 
 and page to the Lord Marshal Crailsham, that, being near 
 when the King fell, and seeing that his charger, wounded in 
 the neck, had galloped away, he dismounted and offered him 
 his own horse. Gustavus stretched out his hands to accept 
 the offer, and the page attempted to lift him from the ground, 
 but was unable. In the meantime some cuirassiers, attracted 
 to the spot, demanded who the wounded man was. Leubelf- 
 ing evaded the question or refused to answer; but the King 
 himself exclaimed, " I am the King of Sweden," when he 
 received four gun-shot wounds and two stabs, which quickly 
 released him from the agony of his broken arm, the bone of 
 which had pierced the flesh and protruded. The imperialist 
 soldiers about the King, each anxious to possess some trophy, 
 had stripped the body to the shirt, and were about to carry 
 it off, when a body of Swedish cavalry, charging toward the 
 spot, dispersed them. 
 
 His death was immediately communicated by one of the 
 few who were about his person when he fell, to the Swedish 
 generals. His charger, galloping loose and bloody about the 
 field, announced to many more that some disaster had befallen 
 him. The whole extent of the calamity, however, was not 
 generally known, but a burning desire ran through the ranks 
 to rescue him, if living; to avenge him, if dead. The noble 
 Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar sustained and animated the en- 
 thusiasm. Having whispered to Kniphausen that Gustavus 
 was dead, he asked him what was to be done. Kniphausen 
 answered that his troops were in good order, and that re- 
 treat was practicable ; to which the fiery Duke answered that 
 it was not a question of retreat, but of vengeance in victory. 
 This said, he assumed the command, and, upon Stenbock's 
 lieutenant-colonel hesitating to advance when he ordered him, 
 passed his sword through his body, and led on to the attack 
 three other regiments, after a few words which gave fresh
 
 252 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 fuel to their ardor. Again the lost ground is won, the lost 
 batteries are recovered. Wallenstein's ammunition explodes, 
 and seven of his guns are captured. 
 
 Stalhanske rallies his Finlanders, drives back the im- 
 perial cuirassiers, and bears away the King's body easily 
 distinguished from the rest of the slain by his heroic stature. 
 But many still are the vicissitudes of that memorable day. 
 Pappenheim brings fresh masses and fresh courage into the 
 field. He is slain; content to die, since Gustavus, the foe of 
 the Emperor and of his faith, breathes no longer; but Pic- 
 colomini and Tersky have inherited his spirit. The Swedes 
 are beaten back; several standards and banners are won by 
 the imperialists. Count Brahe is mortally wounded; and of 
 his division the flower of all the army, the brave veterans 
 " who had been so long accustomed to conquer that they knew 
 not how to yield " there remained but an inconsiderable 
 fraction. 
 
 During all these vicissitudes the cool intrepidity of Knip- 
 hausen had kept the second line of the second unbroken; and 
 when, between three and four o'clock, the fog cleared off, 
 and Duke Bernhard, who had expected a very different ap- 
 pearance, saw it standing firm and in good order, he raised 
 his voice once more to renew the assault. This charge again 
 changed the aspect of the battle; but the mist again spread- 
 ing, again the Swedes are baffled when within a grasp of 
 victory. The fifth and decisive charge was made just before 
 sunset, when the arrival of Pappenheim's foot encouraged 
 the imperialists to make a final and desperate struggle. Knip- 
 hausen's fresh troops were now brought into action. The 
 charge ring of musketry, the shouts of those full of life and 
 hope, stifled once more the groans of the wounded comrades, 
 in whom life was expiring and hope was dead. Both sides 
 fought bravely, admirably; and, had strength and courage 
 alone determined this last agony, doubtful indeed would 
 have been its issue. But the Swedish cannon now again 
 opened their flaming mouths upon the right flank and the 
 front of the imperialists ; and the effect was terrible : rank 
 upon rank and file upon file fell beneath that crushing fire, 
 so that when darkness thickened around the still contending 
 armies, taking advantage of its cover, and leaving behind
 
 GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS HIS TRIUMPH AND DEATH. 253 
 
 him the guns which had not been already captured, Wallen- 
 stein gave the signal to retreat, and drew off from the field. 
 
 Thus ended this day of mingled glory and sadness, the 
 mists and confusion of which have in a great measure ob- 
 scured its history. . . . 
 
 Gustavus' body was brought on a powder wagon to the 
 hamlet of Meuchen, where it was placed for the night in 
 the church before the altar. The next day it was carried to 
 the schoolmaster's house until he, being joiner of the village 
 also, constructed the simple shell in which it was conveyed 
 to Weissenfels. There the body was embalmed by the King's 
 apothecary, Caspar, who counted in it nine wounds. The 
 heart, which was uncommonly large, was preserved by the 
 queen in a golden casket. A trooper, who had been wounded 
 at the King's side, who remained at Meuchen until his wound 
 was healed, assisted by some peasants, rolled a large stone 
 toward the spot where he fell. They were unable, however, 
 to bring the stone, now called the " Swede's Stone," to the 
 exact spot, from which it stands some thirty or forty paces 
 distant. 
 
 The death of Gustavus Adolphus cast a gloom over the 
 whole of Europe. Even foes could lament the fall of so noble 
 an enemy. To his subjects, to his allies, to the bondsmen 
 who looked to him for redress and deliverance, his loss was a 
 heart-rending sorrow. Grave and aged senators wrung 
 their hands and sobbed aloud when intelligence reached 
 Stockholm. In the unfortunate Frederick of Bohemia it 
 produced a depression that contributed probably to his death. 
 
 Nor was the grief shown by the many merely political or 
 selfish excited because the public or individual hopes centered 
 in the King seemed to have perished with him. A heartfelt 
 loyalty, a strong personal admiration and attachment, inter- 
 mingled with other sources of regret, had dignified the sorrow. 
 
 It would have been strange had it been otherwise. There 
 were in Gustavus most of the advantages and amenities of 
 person and character which make a popular king. A man 
 admired and beloved. In his latter years, indeed, he no longer 
 possessed the graceful form that had belonged to him when 
 he was an ardent and favored suitor of Ebba Brahe; but 
 the slight inclination to corpulency that grew with him as 
 he advanced toward middle age, detracted probably little,
 
 254 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 if at all, from the commanding dignity of his person. His 
 countenance to the last retained its captivating sweetness 
 and expressive variety; it was a countenance of which the 
 most accomplished pencil could give in one effort only an 
 inadequate idea, and which Van Dyke to whose portrait of 
 the King none of the engravings which I have seen probably 
 do justice has represented only in repose. 
 
 But in the varying play of Gustavus' features men could 
 read his kindness of heart, his large powers of sympathy, 
 his quick intelligence, his noble, chivalrous nature. And these 
 were infinitely attractive. There, too it must not be con- 
 cealed they could often discern the flash of anger, to be 
 followed quickly by the rough speech which gave pain and 
 offense where a little self-control and consideration might 
 have spared a pang and prevented a quarrel. 
 
 This propensity to anger diminished in some degree both 
 the popularity and the merit of Gustavus ; yet he rarely per- 
 mitted his anger to rage beyond a harsh expression, and with 
 generous instinct he knew how to open the door of reconcili- 
 ation, not only by frankly confessing his irritability, and by 
 conferring fresh favors, but also demanding fresh services 
 from those noble natures which in his heat and rashness he 
 had injured or pained. 
 
 In the field he shared the dangers of his soldiers with a 
 courage liable, doubtless, to the charge of temerity, but to 
 which, no less than to his participation in the hardships, his 
 sympathy with their feelings, and his great military talents, 
 he owed, under God, his success and renown. 
 
 That his military fame was well founded, that no series of 
 accidents could have produced success, at once so splendid 
 and so uniform, we must have believed, though all profes- 
 sional authorities had been silent; but the special merit of 
 no other commander has been more generally acknowledged 
 by those of his own craft. His most celebrated living rival, 
 and the greatest conqueror of modern times have both set 
 their seals to it. Wallenstein on two separate occasions pro- 
 nounced him the greatest captain of his age ; and among the 
 eight best generals whom, in his judgment, the world had ever 
 seen, Napoleon gave a place to Gustavus Adolphus.
 
 FREDERICK THE GREAT OF PRUSSIA. 255 
 
 Frederick the Great of Prussia His Habits 
 the Soldier. 
 
 Macaulay's Essays. 
 
 History has surnamed this Frederick " the great," and has 
 given him a place beside such soldiers as Napoleon and Marl- 
 borough. His successes were generally achieved against great 
 odds. It was his indomitable energy and his untiring devotion to 
 the object for which he was contending that led him to overcome 
 what seemed at times insurmountable obstacles. 
 
 Carlyle has given us the incomparable " Life of Frederick 
 the Great," which will both fascinate and richly repay the 
 student of this remarkable man. 
 
 Frederick's own exertions were such as were hardly fo 
 be expected from a human body or a human mind. At Pots- 
 dam, his ordinary residence, he rose at three in summer and 
 four in winter. A page soon appeared, with a large basket- 
 ful of all the letters which had arrived for the King by the 
 last courier, dispatches from ambassadors, reports from offi- 
 cers of revenue, plans of building, proposals for draining 
 marshes, complaints from persons who thought themselves 
 aggrieved, applications from persons who wanted titles, mil- 
 itary commissions, and civil situations. He examined the 
 seals with a keen eye; for he was never for a moment free 
 from the suspicion that some fraud might be practiced on 
 him. Then he read the letters, divided them into several 
 packets, and signified his pleasure, generally by a mark, often 
 by two or three words, and now and then by some cutting 
 epigram. By eight he had generally finished this part of his 
 task. The adjutant-general was then in attendance, and re- 
 ceived instructions for the day as to all the military arrange- 
 ments of the kingdom. Then the King went to review his 
 guards, not as kings ordinarily review their guards, but with 
 the minute attention and severity of an old drill-sergeant. 
 In the mean time the four cabinet secretaries had been 
 employed in answering the letters on which the King had 
 that morning signified his will. These unhappy men wer.e 
 forced to work all the year round like negro slaves in the 
 time of the sugar-crop. They never had a holiday. They 
 never knew what it was to dine. It was necessary that, before 
 they stirred, they should finish the whole of their work. The
 
 256 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 King, always on his guard against treachery, took from the 
 heap a handful of letters at random, and looked into them 
 to see whether his instructions had been exactly followed. 
 This was no bad security against foul play on the part of 
 the secretaries; for if one of them were detected in a trick, 
 he might think himself fortunate if he escaped with five 
 years of imprisonment in a dungeon. Frederick then signed 
 the replies, and all were sent off the same evening. 
 
 The general principles on which this government was 
 conducted, deserve attention. The policy of Frederick was 
 essentially the same as his father's; but Frederick, while 
 he carried that policy to lengths to which his father never 
 thought of carrying it, cleared it at the same time from 
 the absurdities with which his father had encumbered it. 
 The King's first object was to have a great, efficient, and 
 well-trained army. He had a kingdom which in extent and 
 population was hardly in the second rank of European 
 powers; and yet he aspired to a place not inferior to that 
 of the kings of England, France, or Austria. For that end 
 it was necessary that Prussia should be all sting. Louis 
 XV, with five times as many subjects as Frederick, and 
 more than five times as large a revenue, had not a more 
 formidable army. The proportion which the soldiers of 
 Prussia bore to the people seems hardly credible. Of the 
 males in the vigor of life, a seventh part were probably 
 under arms; and this great force had, by drilling, by re- 
 viewing, and by the unsparing use of cane and scourge, 
 been taught to perform all evolutions with a rapidity and 
 a precision which would have astonished Villars or Eugene. 
 
 Considered as an administrator, Frederick had undoubtedly 
 many titles to praise. Order was strictly maintained through- 
 out his dominions. Property was secure. A great liberty 
 of speaking and of writing was allowed. Confident in the 
 irresistible strength derived from a great army, the King 
 looked down on malcontents and libelers with a wise dis- 
 dain, and gave little encouragement to spies and informers. 
 When he was told of the disaffection of one of his subjects, 
 he merely asked, " How many thousand men can he bring 
 into the field ? " He once saw a crowd staring at some-
 
 FREDERICK THE GREAT OF PRUSSIA. 257 
 
 thing on a wall. He rode up, and found that the object 
 of curiosity was a scurrilous placard against himself. The 
 placard had been posted so high that it was not easy to 
 read it. Frederick ordered his attendants to take it down 
 and put it lower. " My people and I," he said, " have come 
 to an agreement which satisfies us both. They are to say 
 what they please, and I am to do what I please." No per- 
 son would have dared to publish in London satires on George 
 II approaching the atrocity of those satires on Frederick 
 which the booksellers of Berlin sold with impunity. One 
 bookseller sent to the palace a copy of the most stinging 
 lampoon that was ever written in the world, the Memoirs of 
 Voltaire, published by Beaumarchais, and asked for his Maj- 
 esty's orders. " Do not advertise it in an offensive manner," 
 said the King, " but sell it by all means. I hope it will pay 
 you well." Even among statesmen accustomed to the license 
 of a free press, such steadfastness of mind as this is not 
 very common. 
 
 It is due also to the memory of Frederick to say that 
 he earnestly labored to secure to his people the great bless- 
 ing of cheap and speedy justice. He was one of the first 
 rulers who abolished the cruel and absurd practice of tor- 
 ture. No sentence of death pronounced by the ordinary 
 tribunals was executed without his sanction; and his sanc- 
 tion, except in cases of murder, was rarely given. 
 Towards his troops he acted in a very different manner. 
 Military offenses were punished with such barbarous 
 scourging that to be shot was considered by a Prussian 
 soldier as a secondary punishment. Indeed, the principle 
 which pervaded Frederick's whole policy was this, that the 
 more severe the army is governed, the safer it is to treat 
 the rest of the community with lenity. 
 
 Religious persecution was unknown under his govern- 
 ment, unless some foolish and unjust restrictions which 
 lay upon the Jews may be regarded as forming an exception. 
 His policy with respect to the Catholics of Silesia presented 
 an honorable contrast to the policy which, under very similar 
 circumstances, England long followed with respect to the 
 Catholics of Ireland. Every form of religion and irre- 
 ligion found an asylum in his states. The scoffer whom 
 the Parliament of France had sentenced to a cruel death, 
 
 17
 
 258 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 was consoled by a commission in the Prussian service. 
 The Jesuit who could show his face nowhere else, who in 
 Britain was still subject to penal laws, who was proscribed 
 by France, Spain, Portugal, and Naples, who had been 
 given up even by the Vatican, found safety and the means 
 of subsistence in the Prussian dominions. 
 
 Frederick's first battle was fought at Molwitz ; and 
 never did the career of a great commander open in a more 
 inauspicious manner. His army was victorious. Not only, 
 however, did he not establish his title to the character of an 
 able general ; but he was so unfortunate as to make it doubt- 
 ful whether he possessed the vulgar courage of a soldier. 
 The cavalry, which he commanded in person, was put to 
 flight. Unaccustomed to the tumult and carnage of a field 
 of battle, he lost his self-possession, and listened too read- 
 ily to those who urged him to save himself. His English 
 gray carried him many miles from the field, while Schwerin, 
 though wounded in two places, manfully upheld the day. 
 The skill of the old Field-Marshal and the steadiness of 
 the Prussian battalions prevailed ; and the Austrian army 
 was driven from the field with the loss of eight thousand 
 men. 
 
 The news was carried late at night to a mill in which 
 the King had taken shelter. It gave him a bitter pang. He 
 was successful ; but he owed his success to dispositions which 
 others had made, and to the valor of men who had fought 
 while he was flying. So unpromising was the first appear- 
 ance of the greatest warrior of that age. 
 
 The battle of Molwitz was the signal for a general ex- 
 plosion throughout Europe. Bavaria took up arms, France, 
 not yet declaring herself a principal in the war, took part in 
 it as an ally of Bavaria. The two great statesmen to whom 
 mankind had owed many years of tranquillity, disappeared 
 about this time from the scene, but not till they had both 
 been guilty of the weakness of sacrificing their sense of 
 justice and their love of peace to the vain hope of preserv- 
 ing their power. Fleury, sinking under age and infirmity, 
 was borne down by the impetuosity of Belle-Isle. Walpole 
 retired from the service of his ungrateful country to his
 
 FREDERICK THE GREAT OF PRUSSIA. 259 
 
 woods and paintings at Houghton; and his power devolved 
 on the daring and eccentric Carteret. As were the minis- 
 ters, so were the nations. Thirty years during which 
 Europe had, with few interruptions, enjoyed peace, had 
 prepared the public mind for great military efforts. A new 
 generation had grown up, which could not remember the 
 siege of Turin or the slaughter of Malplaquet, which knew 
 war by nothing but its trophies, and which, while it looked 
 with pride on the tapestries of Blenheim or the statue in 
 the Place of Victories, little thought by what privations, 
 by what waste of private fortunes, by how many bitter tears, 
 conquests must be purchased. 
 
 For a time, fortune seemed adverse to the Queen of 
 Hungary. Frederick invaded Moravia. The French and 
 Bavarians penetrated into Bohemia, and were there joined 
 by the Saxons. Prague was taken. The Elector of Bavaria 
 was raised by the suffrages of his colleagues to the imperial 
 throne, a throne which the practice of centuries had almost 
 entitled the house of Austria to regard as a hereditary 
 possession. 
 
 Yet was the spirit of the haughty daughter of the 
 Caesars unbroken. Hungary was still hers by an unques- 
 tionable title ; and although her ancestors had found Hun- 
 gary the most mutinous of all their kingdoms, she resolved 
 to trust herself to the fidelity of a people, rude indeed, tur- 
 bulent, and impatient of oppression, but brave, generous, and 
 simple-hearted. In the midst of distress and peril she had 
 given birth to a son, afterward the Emperor Joseph II. 
 Scarcely had she risen from her couch when she hastened 
 to Pressburg. There in the sight of an innumerable multi- 
 tude she was crowned with the crown and robed with the 
 robe of St. Stephen. No spectator could restrain his tears 
 when the beautiful young mother, still weak from child- 
 bearing, rode, after the fashion of her fathers, up the Mount 
 of Defiance, unsheathed the ancient sword of state, shook 
 it towards the north and south, east and west, and with a 
 glow upon her pale face challenged the four corners of the 
 world to dispute her rights and those of her boy. At the 
 first sitting of the Diet she appeared clad in deep mourning 
 for her father, and in pathetic and dignified words implored 
 her people to support her just cause. Magnates and deputies
 
 260 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 sprang up, half drew their sabers, and with eager voices 
 vowed to stand by her with their lives and their fortunes. 
 Till then her firmness had never once forsaken her before 
 the public eye ; but at that shout she sank down upon her 
 throne, and wept aloud. Still more touching was the sight 
 when a few days later she came before the estates of her 
 realm, and held up before them the little Archduke in her 
 arms. Then it was that the enthusiasm of Hungary broke 
 forth into that war-cry which soon resounded throughout 
 Europe, " Let us die for our King, Maria Theresa ! " 
 
 In the mean time, Frederick was meditating a change of 
 policy. He had no wish to raise France to supreme power 
 on the Continent at the expense of the house of Habsburg. 
 His first object was to rob the Queen of Hungary.* His 
 second object was that, if possible, nobody should rob her 
 but himself. He had entered into engagements with the 
 powers leagued against Austria; but these engagements 
 were in his estimation of no more force than the guarantee 
 formerly given to the Pragmatic Sanction. His plan now 
 was to secure his share of the plunder by betraying his ac- 
 complices. Maria Theresa was little inclined to listen 
 to any such compromise; but the English government 
 represented to her so strongly the necessity of buying off 
 Frederick that she agreed to negotiate. The negotiation 
 would not, however, have ended in a treaty, had not the 
 arms of Frederick been crowned with a second victory. 
 Prince Charles of Lorraine, brother-in-law to Maria Theresa, 
 a bold and active, though unfortunate general, gave battle 
 to the Prussians at Chotusitz and was defeated. The King 
 was still only a learner of the military art. He acknowl- 
 edged, at a later period, that his success on this occasion 
 was to be attributed, not at all to his own generalship, but 
 solely to the valor and steadiness of his troops. He com- 
 pletely effaced, however, by his personal courage and energy, 
 the stain which Molwitz had left on his reputation. 
 
 * The severe criticism to which Macaulay here and elsewhere 
 subjects Frederick is unmerited, and the student should com- 
 pare on this point what " Carlyle " has to say, and read the 
 article on Frederick in the Britannica or some other good en- 
 cyclopedia. Macaulay permits the desire for striking and bril- 
 liant writing to carry him away to be less concerned about the 
 exact truth. M. S.
 
 FREDERICK THE GREAT OF PRUSSIA. 261 
 
 A peace, concluded under the English mediation, was 
 the fruit of this battle, Maria Theresa ceded Silesia; 
 Frederick abandoned his allies; Saxony followed his ex- 
 ample, and the Queen was left at liberty to turn her whole 
 force against France and Bavaria. She was everywhere 
 triumphant. The French were compelled to evacuate Bo- 
 hemia, and with difficulty effected their escape. The whole 
 line of their retreat might be tracked by the corpses of thou- 
 sands who had died of cold, fatigue, and hunger. Many of 
 those who reached their own country carried with them the 
 seeds of death. Bavaria was overrun by bands of ferocious 
 warriors from that bloody debatable land which lies on the 
 frontier between Christendom and Islam. The terrible 
 names of the Pandoor, the Croat, and the Hussar, then first 
 became familiar to Western Europe. The unfortunate 
 Charles of Bavaria, vanquished by Austria, betrayed by 
 Prussia, driven from his hereditary states, and neglected by 
 his allies, was hurried by shame and remorse to an untimely 
 end. An English army appeared in the heart of Germany, 
 and defeated the French at Dettingen. The Austrian cap- 
 tains already began to talk of completing the work of 
 Marlborough and Eugene, and of compelling France to re- 
 linquish Alsace and the three Bishoprics. 
 
 The court of Versailles, in this peril, looked to Fred- 
 erick for help. He had been guilty of two great treasons; 
 perhaps he might be induced to commit a third. The Duchess 
 of Chateauroux then held the chief influence over the feeble 
 Louis. She determined to send an agent to Berlin; and 
 Voltaire was selected for the mission. He eagerly under- 
 took the task; for while his literary fame filled all Europe, 
 he was troubled with a childish craving for political dis- 
 tinction. He was vain, and not without reason, of his 
 address and his insinuating eloquence ; and he flattered him- 
 self that he possessed boundless influence over the King of 
 Prussia. The truth was that he knew, as yet, only one corner 
 of Frederick's character. He was well acquainted with all 
 the petty vanities and affectations of the poetaster, but was 
 not aware that these foibles were united with all the talents 
 and vices which lead to success in active life, and that the 
 unlucky versifier who pestered him with reams of middling 
 Alexandrines, was the vigilant suspicious, and severe of 
 politicians.
 
 262 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 Voltaire was received with every mark of respect and 
 friendship, was lodged in the palace, and had a seat daily at 
 the royal table. The negotiation was of an extraordinary 
 description. Nothing can be conceived more whimsical than 
 the conference which took place between the first literary 
 man and the first practical man of the age, whom a strange 
 weakness had induced to exchange their parts. The great 
 poet would talk of nothing but treaties and guarantees, and 
 the great King of nothing but metaphors and rhymes. On 
 one occasion Voltaire put into his Majesty's hands a paper 
 on the state of Europe, and received it back with verses 
 scrawled on the margin. In secret they both laughed at each 
 other. Voltaire did not spare the King's poems; and the 
 King has left on record his opinion of Voltaire's diplomacy. 
 " He had no credentials," says Frederick, " and the whole 
 mission was a joke, a mere farce." 
 
 But what the influence of Voltaire could not effect, the 
 rapid progress of Austrian arms effected. If it should be 
 in the power of Maria Theresa and George II to dictate 
 terms of peace to France, what chance was there that 
 Prussia would long retain Silesia? Frederick's conscience 
 told him that he had acted perfidiously and inhumanly to- 
 ward the Queen of Hungary. That her resentment was 
 strong she had given ample proof; and of her respect for 
 treaties he judged by his own. Guarantees, he said, were 
 mere filigree, pretty to look at, but too brittle to bear the 
 slightest pressure. He thought it his safest course to ally 
 himself closely to France, and again to attack the Empress 
 Queen. Accordingly, into the autumn of 1744, without 
 notice, without any decent pretext, he recommenced hostili- 
 ties, marched through the electorate of Saxony without 
 troubling himself about the permission of the Elector, in- 
 vaded Bohemia, took Prague, and even menaced Vienna. 
 
 It was now that, for the first time, he experienced the in- 
 constancy of fortune. An Austrian army under Charles 
 of Lorraine threatened his communication with Silesia. 
 Saxony was all in arms behind him. He found it necessary 
 to save himself by a retreat. He afterwards owned that 
 his failure was the natural effect of his own blunders. No- 
 general, he said, had ever committed greater faults. It 
 must be added that to the reverses of this campaign he al-
 
 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 265 
 
 ways ascribed his subsequent successes. It was in the midst 
 of difficulty and disgrace that he caught the first clear 
 glimpses of the principles of the military art. 
 
 The memorable year 1745 followed. The war raged by 
 sea and land, in Italy, in Germany, and in Flanders; and 
 even England, after many years of profound internal quiet, 
 saw, for the first time, hostile armies set in battle array 
 against each other. This year is memorable in the life of 
 Frederick, as the date at which his novitiate in the art of 
 war may be said to have terminated. There have been great 
 captains whose precocious and self-taught military skill re- 
 sembled intuition. Conde, Clive, and Napoleon are examples. 
 But Frederick was not one of these brilliant portents. His 
 proficiency in military science was simply the proficiency 
 which a man of vigorous faculties makes in any science to- 
 which he applies his mind with earnestness and industry. 
 It was at Hohenfriedberg that he first proved how much he 
 had profited by his errors, and by their consequences. His 
 victory on that day was chiefly due to his skillful disposi- 
 tions, and convinced Europe that the young prince who, a 
 few years before, had stood aghast in the route of Molwitz, 
 had attained in the military art a mastery equaled by none 
 of his contemporaries, or equaled by Saxe alone. The victory 
 of Hohenfriedberg was speedily followed by that of Sorr. 
 
 George Washington. 
 
 Irving's Life of Washington. 
 
 Americans have every reason to congratulate themselves 
 that Irving wrote the Life of Washington; for Irving's style 
 and manner of expression are unsurpassed for historical narra- 
 tive, and nowhere is it seen to better advantage than in the 
 portrayal of this most excellent man, the " Father of his 
 country," George Washington. Amid the most primitive cir- 
 cumstances and the most trying conditions we see Washington 
 patiently overcoming difficulties and manfully meeting adversity, 
 rising superior to triumphs, and leading an infant nation to- 
 victory. Simplicity and strength, dignity and humility, self- 
 control and persevering action, are characteristics that shine 
 forth in this grand character. He was, moreover, a regular 
 attendant upon divine worship, and we have no reason to doubt 
 that he was an earnest Christian.
 
 264 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 It was in the month of March (1748), and just after he 
 had completed his sixteenth year, that Washington set out 
 on horseback on this surveying expedition, in company with 
 George William Fairfax. Their route lay by Ashley's Gap, 
 a pass through the Blue Ridge, that beautiful line of moun- 
 tains which, as yet, almost formed the western frontier of 
 inhabited Virginia. Winter still lingered on the top of the 
 mountains, whence melting snows sent down torrents, which 
 swelled the rivers and occasionally rendered them almost 
 impassable. Spring, however, was softening the lower parts 
 and smiling in the valleys. 
 
 They entered the great valley of Virginia, where it is 
 about twenty-five miles wide; a lovely and temperate region, 
 diversified by gentle swells and slopes, admirably adapted 
 to cultivation. The Blue Ridge bounds it on one side, the 
 North Mountain, a ridge of the Alleghenies, on the other, 
 while through it flows that bright and abounding river, 
 which, on account of its surpassing beauty, was named by 
 the Indians the Shenandoah that is to say, " the daughter 
 of the stars." 
 
 The first station of the travelers was a kind of lodge in 
 the wilderness, where the steward, or land-bailiff, of Lord 
 Fairfax resided, with such negroes as were required for 
 farming purposes, and which Washington terms " his lord- 
 ship's quarters." It was situated not far from the Shenan- 
 doah, and about twelve miles from the site of the present 
 town of Winchester. 
 
 In a diary kept with the usual minuteness, Washington 
 speaks with delight of the beauty of the trees and the rich- 
 ness of the land in the neighborhood, and of his riding 
 through a noble grove of sugar maples on the banks of the 
 Shenandoah ; and at the present day the magnificence of the 
 forests which still exist in this favored region justifies his 
 eulogium. 
 
 * ' * * 
 
 His surveys commenced in the lower part of the valley, 
 some distance above the junction of the Shenandoah with 
 the Potomac, and extended for many miles along the former 
 river. Here and there partial " clearings " had been made 
 by squatters and hardy pioneers, and their rude husbandry 
 had produced abundant crops of grain, hemp, and tobacco;
 
 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 265 
 
 civilization, however, had hardly yet entered the valley, if 
 we may judge from the note of a night's lodging at the 
 house of one of the settlers Captain Kite near the site 
 of the present town of Winchester. Here, after supper, 
 most of the company stretched themselves in backwoods 
 style before the fire ; but Washington was shown into a 
 bedroom. Fatigued with a hard day's work at surveying, he 
 soon undressed; but instead of being nestled between sheets 
 in a comfortable bed, as at the maternal home or at Mount 
 Vernon, he found himself on a couch of matted straw, under 
 a threadbare blanket, swarming with unwelcome bedfellows. 
 After tossing about for a few moments, he was glad to put on 
 his clothes again, and rejoin his companions before the fire. 
 
 Such was his first experience of life in the wilderness ; 
 he soon, however, accustomed himself to " rough it," and 
 adapt himself to fare of all kinds, though he generally pre- 
 ferred a bivouac before a fire, in the open air, to the accom- 
 modations of - a woodman's cabin. Proceeding down the 
 valley to the banks of the Potomac, they found that river so 
 much swollen by the rain which had fallen among the Alle- 
 ghenies as to be unfordable. To while away the time till 
 it should subside, they made an excursion to examine certain 
 warm springs in the valley among the mountains, since 
 called the Berkeley Springs. There they camped for the 
 night, under the stars; the diary makes no complaint of 
 their accommodations; and their camping ground is now 
 known as Bath, one of the favorite watering-places of 
 Virginia. One of the warm springs was subsequently ap- 
 propriated by Lord Fairfax to his own use, and still bears 
 his name. 
 
 After watching in vain for the river to subside, they 
 procured a canoe on which they crossed to the Maryland 
 side, swimming their horses. A weary day's ride of forty 
 miles up the left side of the river, in a continual rain, and 
 over what Washington pronounces the worst road ever trod 
 by man or beast, brought them to the house of Colonel Cresap, 
 opposite the south branch of the Potomac, where they put 
 up for the night. 
 
 Here they were detained three or four days by inclement 
 weather. On the second day they were surprised by the 
 appearance of a war party of Indians, bearing a scalp as a 

 
 266 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 trophy. A little liquor procured the spectacle of a war dance. 
 A large place was cleared, and a fire made in the center 
 round which the warriors took their seats. The principal 
 orator made a speech, reciting their recent exploits, and 
 rousing them to triumph. One of the warriors started up as 
 if from sleep, and began a series of movements, half gro- 
 tesque, half tragical ; the rest followed. For music one 
 savage drummed on a deer skin, stretched over a pot half 
 filled with water; another rattled a gourd, containing a few 
 shot, and decorated with a horse's tail. Their strange out- 
 cries and uncouth forms and garbs, seen by the glare of the 
 fire, and their whoops and yells, made them appear more 
 like demons than human beings. All this savage gambol 
 was no novelty to Washington's companions, experienced 
 in frontier life; but to the youth, fresh from school, it was 
 a strange spectacle, which he sat contemplating with deep 
 interest and carefully noted down in his journal. It will be 
 found that he soon made himself acquainted with the savage 
 character, and became expert in dealing with these inhabit- 
 ants of the wilderness. 
 
 From this encampment the party proceeded to the mouth 
 of Patterson's Creek, where they recrossed the river in a 
 canoe, swimming their horses as before. More than two 
 weeks were now passed by them in the wild mountainous 
 regions of Frederick County, and about the south branch of 
 the Potomac, surveying lands and laying out lots, camped 
 out the greater part of the time, and subsisting on wild 
 turkey and other game. Each one was his own cook ; 
 forked sticks served as spits and chips of wood for dishes. 
 The weather was unsettled. At one time their tent was 
 "blown down; at another they were driven out of it by 
 smoke; now they were drenched with rain, and now the 
 straw on which Washington was sleeping caught fire, and he 
 was awakened by a companion just in time to escape a 
 scorching. 
 
 The only variety to this camp life was a supper at the 
 "house of one Solomon Hedge, Esquire, His Majesty's justice 
 of the peace, where there were no forks at the table, nor any 
 knives but such as the guests brought in their pockets. Dur- 
 ing their surveys they were followed by numbers of people, 
 some of them squatters, anxious, doubtless, to procure a
 
 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 267 
 
 cheap title to the land they had appropriated; others, Ger- 
 man emigrants, with their wives and children, seeking a 
 new home in the wilderness. Most of the latter could not 
 speak English ; but when spoken to answered in their native 
 tongue. They appeared to Washington ignorant as Indians 
 and uncouth, but " merry and full of antic tricks." Such 
 were the progenitors of the sturdy yeomanry now inhabit- 
 ing those parts, many of whom still preserve their strong 
 German characteristics. 
 
 " I have not slept above three or four nights in a bed," 
 writes Washington to one of his young friends at homer 
 " but after walking a good deal all the day I have lain down 
 before the fire upon a little straw or fodder, or, a bear-skin,, 
 whichever was to be had, with man, wife, and children, 
 like dogs and cats ; and happy is he who gets the berth 
 nearest the fire." 
 
 Having completed his surveys, he set forth from the south 
 branch of the Potomac on his return homeward, crossed the 
 mountains to the great Cacapehon, traversed the Shenandoah 
 Valley, passed through the Blue Ridge, and on the I2th of 
 April found himself once more at Mount Vernon. For his 
 services he received, according to his note-book, a doubloon 
 per day when actively engaged, and sometimes six pistoles.* 
 
 The manner in which he acquitted himself in this arduous 
 expedition, and his accounts of the country surveyed, gave 
 great satisfaction to Lord Fairfax, who shortly afterward 
 moved across the Blue Ridge, and took up his residence at 
 the place heretofore noted as his " quarters." Here he laid 
 out a manor, containing ten thousand acres of arable grazing 
 lands, vast meadows, and noble forests, and projected a spa- 
 cious manor house, giving to the place the name of Green- 
 way Court. 
 
 It was probably through the influence of Lord Fairfax 
 that Washington received the appointment of public sur- 
 veyor. This conveyed authority on his surveys, and entitled 
 them to be recorded in the county offices ; and so invariably 
 correct have these surveys been found that, to this day, 
 wherever any of them stand on record, they receive implicit 
 credit. 
 
 *A pistole is $3.60.
 
 268 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 For three years he continued in this occupation, which 
 proved extremely profitable, from the vast extent of country 
 to be surveyed and the very limited number of public sur- 
 veyors. It made him acquainted, also, with the country, the 
 nature of the soil in various parts, and the value of locali- 
 ties; all which proved advantageous to him in his purchases 
 in after years. Many of the finest parts of the Shenandoah 
 Valley are yet owned by members of the Washington family. 
 
 While thus employed for months at a time surveying the 
 lands beyond the Blue Ridge, he was often an inmate of 
 Greenway Court. The projected manor house was never even 
 commenced. On a green knoll overshadowed by trees was a 
 long stone building one story in height, with dormer win- 
 dows, two wooden belfries, chimneys studded with swallow 
 and martin coops, and a roof sloping down in the old Virginia 
 fashion, into low projecting eaves that formed a veranda the 
 whole length of the house. It was probably the house orig- 
 inally occupied by the steward or land-agent, but was now 
 devoted to hospitable purposes and the reception of guests. 
 As to his lordship, it was one of his many eccentricities that 
 he never slept in the main edifice, but lodged apart in a wood 
 house not much above twelve feet square. In a small build- 
 ing was his office, where quit-rents were given, deeds drawn, 
 and business transacted with his tenants. 
 
 About the knoll were outhouses for his numerous servants, 
 black and white, with stables for saddle-horses and hunters, 
 and kennels for his hounds; for his lordship retained his 
 keen hunting propensities, and the neighborhood abounded 
 in game. Indians and half-breeds, and leathern-clad wood- 
 men loitered about the place, and partook of the abundance 
 of the kitchen. His lordship's table was plentiful but plain, 
 and served in the English fashion. 
 
 Here Washington had full opportunity, in the proper 
 seasons, of indulging his fondness for field sports, and once 
 more accompanying his lordship in the chase. The conver- 
 sation of Lord Fairfax, too, was full of interest and instruc- 
 tion to an inexperienced youth, from his cultivated talents, 
 his literary taste, and his past intercourse with the best 
 society of Europe, and its most distinguished authors. He 
 had brought books, too, with him into the wilderness, and
 
 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 269 
 
 from Washington's diary we find that during his sojourn 
 here he was diligently reading the history of England and 
 the essays of the Spectator. 
 
 Such was Greenway Court in these its palmy days. We 
 visited it recently and found it tottering to its fall, moldering 
 rn the midst of a magnificent country, where nature still 
 flourishes in full luxuriance and beauty. 
 
 Three or four years were thus passed by Washington, 
 the greater part of the time beyond the Blue Ridge, but oc- 
 casionally with his brother Lawrence at Mount Vernon. 
 His rugged and toilsome expeditions in the mountains, 
 among rude scenes and rough people, inured him to hard- 
 ships, and made him apt at expedients ; while his intercourse 
 with his cultivated brother, and with the various members 
 of the Fairfax family, had a happy effect in toning up his 
 mind and manners, and counteracting the careless and self- 
 indulgent habitudes of the wilderness. 
 
 We subjoin several extracts from the letters of Washing- 
 ton from which the reader will obtain some insight into the 
 discouragements and difficulties which confronted him, and 
 which would have disconcerted many a one less devoted and 
 spirited than that noble patriot. While he and his army 
 were in their sad plight in the winter of 1776-1777 he wrote 
 to Congress: 
 
 To THE PRESIDENT OF CONGRESS. 
 Camp, Above Trenton Falls, 20 December, 1776. 
 Sir, 
 
 I have waited with much impatience to know the 
 determination of Congress on the propositions, made some 
 time in October last, for augmenting our corps of artillery 
 and establishing a corps of engineers. The time is now 
 come when the first cannot be delayed without the greatest 
 injury to the safety of these states; and, therefore, under 
 resolution of Congress bearing date the I2th instant, at the 
 repeated instances of Colonel Knox, and by the pressing 
 advice of all the general officers now here, I have ventured 
 to order three battalions of artillery to be immediately re- 
 cruited. 
 
 * * * 
 
 The pay of our artillerists bearing no proportion to that 
 in the English or French service, the murmuring and dis-
 
 270 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 satisfaction thereby occasioned, the absolute impossibility, I 
 am told, of getting them upon the old terms, and the un- 
 avoidable necessity of obtaining them at all events, have in- 
 duced me, also by advice, to promise officers and men that 
 their pay shall be augmented twenty-five per cent., or their 
 engagements shall become null and void. This may appear 
 to Congress premature and unwarrantable. But, Sir, if they 
 view our situation in the light it strikes their officers, they 
 will be convinced of the utility of the measure, and that the 
 execution could not be delayed till after their meeting in 
 Baltimore. In short, the present exigency of our affairs will 
 not admit of delay, either in council or in the field ; for well 
 convinced I am that, if the enemy go into quarters at all, it 
 will be for a short season. But I rather think the design 
 of General Howe is to possess himself of Philadelphia this 
 -winter, if possible ; and in truth I do not see what is to pre- 
 vent him, as ten days more will put an end to the existence 
 of our army. That one great point is to keep us as much 
 harassed as possible, with a view to injure the recruiting 
 service and hinder a collection of stores and other neces- 
 saries for the next campaign. If, therefore, in the short in- 
 terval in which we have to provide for and make these great 
 and arduous preparations, every matter that in its nature is 
 self-evident is to be referred to Congress, at the distance 
 of a hundred and thirty or forty miles, so much time must 
 necessarily elapse as to defeat the end in view. 
 
 It may be said that this is an application for powers that 
 are too dangerous to be entrusted. I can only add that 
 desperate diseases require desperate remedies; and I with 
 truth declare that I have no lust after power, but I wish as 
 any man upon this wide-extended continent for an oppor- 
 tunity of turning the sword into a plowshare. But my feel- 
 ings as an officer and a man, have been such as to force me 
 to say that no person ever had a greater choice of difficulties 
 to contend with than I have. It is needless to add that short 
 enlistments and a mistaken dependence upon militia have 
 teen the origin of all our misfortunes, and the great accumu- 
 lation of our debt. We find, Sir, that the enemy are daily 
 gathering strength from the disaffected. This strength, like 
 a snowball, by rolling will increase, unless some means can 
 be devised to check effectually the progress of the enemy's
 
 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 271 
 
 arms. Militia may possibly do it for a little while; but in 
 a little while, also, and the militia of those states which 
 have been frequently called upon will not turn out at all; 
 or, if they do, it will be with so much reluctance and sloth 
 as to amount to the same thing. Instance New Jersey ! Wit- 
 ness Pennsylvania ! Could anything but the river Delaware 
 have saved Philadelphia? Can anything (the exigency of 
 the case indeed may justify it) be more destructive service 
 than giving ten dollars bounty for six weeks' service of the 
 militia, who come in, you cannot tell how, go, you cannot tell 
 when, and act, you cannot tell where, consume your pro- 
 visions, exhaust your stores, and leave you at last at a critical 
 moment ? 
 
 These. Sir, are the men I am to depend upon ten days 
 hence; this is the basis on which your cause will and must 
 forever depend, till you get a large standing army sufficient 
 of itself to oppose the enemy. I therefore beg leave to give 
 it as my humble opinion that eighty-eight battalions are by 
 no means equal to the opposition you are to make, and that a 
 moment's time is not to be lost in raising a greater number, 
 not less, in my opinion and in the opinion of my officers, 
 than a hundred and ten. It may be urged that it will be 
 found difficult enough to complete the first number. This 
 may be true, and yet the officers of a hundred and ten 
 battalions will recruit many more men than those of eighty- 
 eight. In my judgment this is not a time to stand upon ex- 
 pense; our funds are not the only object of consideration. 
 The state of New York has added one battalion (I wish they 
 had made it two) to their quota. If any good officers will 
 offer to raise men upon Continental pay and establishment 
 in this quarter, I shall encourage them to do so, and regiment 
 them when they have done it. If Congress disapprove of 
 this proceeding, they will please to signify it, as I mean it 
 for the best. It may be thought that I am going a good 
 deal out of the line of my duty to adopt these measures, or 
 to advise thus freely. A character to lose, an estate to for- 
 feit, the inestimable blessings of liberty at stake, and a life 
 devoted, must be my excuse. 
 
 * * * 
 
 Every exertion should be used to procure tents; a 
 clothier-general should be appointed without loss of time for
 
 272 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 supplying the army with every article in that way; he 
 should be a man of business and abilities. A commissary 
 of prisoners must be appointed to attend the army ; for want 
 of an officer of this kind, the exchange of prisoners has been 
 conducted in a most shameful and injurious manner. We 
 have had them from all quarters pushed into our camps at 
 the most critical junctures, and without the least previous 
 notice. We have had them traveling through the different 
 states in all directions by certificates from committees, with- 
 out any kind of control, and have had instances of some 
 going into the enemy's camp without my privity or knowl- 
 edge, after passing in the manner before mentioned. 
 
 I have labored, ever since I have been in the service, to 
 discourage all kinds of local attachments and distinctions of 
 country, denominating the whole by the greater name of 
 AMERICA, but I have found it impossible to overcome 
 prejudices; ancl, under the new establishment, I conceive, it 
 best to stir up an emulation; in order to do which, would 
 it not be better for each state to furnish, though not to ap- 
 point, their own brigadiers? This, if known to be a part of 
 the establishment, might prevent a good deal of contention 
 and jealousy, and would, I believe, be the means of promo- 
 tions going forward with more satisfaction, and quiet the 
 higher officers.* 
 
 " It is useless," says Mr. Morris, " at this period to ex- 
 amine into the causes of our present unhappy situation, un- 
 less that examination would be productive of a cure for the 
 evils which surround us. In fact, those causes have long 
 been known to such as would open their eyes. The very con- 
 sequences were foretold and the measures execrated by some 
 of the best friends of America; but in vain; an obstinate 
 partiality to the habits and customs of one part of this con- 
 tinent has predominated in the public councils, and too little 
 attention has been paid to others. To criminate the authors 
 of our errors would not avail, but we cannot see ruin staring 
 us in the face without thinking of them. It has been my 
 
 * The evil effects which had sprung from local prejudices are 
 strongly described in a letter from Robert Morris to General 
 Washington.
 
 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 373 
 
 fate to make an ineffectual opposition to all short enlistments, 
 to colonial appointment of officers, and to many other meas- 
 ures, which I thought pregnant with mischief; but these 
 things either suited with the genius and habits, or squared 
 with the interests of some states that had sufficient influence 
 to prevail, and nothing is now left but to extricate ourselves 
 as well as we can." MS. Letter, December 23. 
 
 (Extract from letter of Washington. The Writings of 
 Washington. By Jared Sparks. Vol. IV, p. 232.) 
 
 This is the letter in which Washington describes to Con- 
 gress his success in crossing the Delaware and surprising 
 the enemy, taking several regiments of Hessians prisoners 
 who had there encamped in winter quarters: 
 
 To THE PRESIDENT OF CONGRESS. 
 Headquarters, Newtown, 27 December, 1776. 
 Sir, 
 
 . I have the pleasure of congratulating you upon the 
 success of an enterprise which I had formed against a de- 
 tachment of the enemy lying in Trenton, and which was 
 executed yesterday morning. The evening of the 25th I 
 ordered the troops intended for this service to parade back of 
 McKonkey's Ferry, that they might begin to pass as soon as 
 it grew dark, imagining that we should be able to throw 
 them all over, with the necessary artillery, by twelve o'clock, 
 and that we might easily arrive at Trenton by five in the 
 morning, the distance being about nine miles. But the quan- 
 tity of ice, made that night, impeded the passage of the boats 
 so much that it was three o'clock before the artillery could all 
 be got over; and near four before the troops took up their 
 line of march. This made me despair of surprising the town, 
 as I well knew that we could not reach it before the day was 
 fairly broke. But as I was certain there was no making a 
 retreat without being discovered and harassed on repassing 
 the river, I determined to push on at all events. I formed 
 my detachment into two divisions, one to march by the lower 
 or river road, the other by the upper or Pennington road. 
 As the divisions had nearly the same distance to march, I 
 ordered each of them, immediately upon forcing the out- 
 guards, to push directly into the town, that they might charge 
 the enemy before they had time to form. 
 
 18
 
 274 THE VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
 The upper division arrived at the enemy's advanced post 
 exactly at eight o'clock ; and in three minutes after I found, 
 from the fire on the lower road, that that division had got up 
 also. The outguards made but small opposition, though, for 
 their numbers, they behaved very well, keeping up a constant 
 retreating fire from behind houses. We presently saw their 
 main body formed ; but, from their motions, they seemed 
 undetermined how to act. Being hard-pressed by our troops, 
 who had already got possession of their artillery, they at- 
 tempted to file off by a road on their right, leading to Prince- 
 ton. But, perceiving their intention, I threw a body of troops 
 in their way, which immediately checked them. Finding 
 from our disposition that they were surrounded, and that 
 they must inevitably be cut to pieces if they made any fur- 
 ther resistance, they agreed to lay down their arms. The 
 number that submitted in this manner was twenty-three 
 officers and eight hundred and eighty-six men. Colonel Rahl, 
 the commanding officer, and seven others were found 
 wounded in the town. I do not exactly know how many 
 were killed ; but I fancy not above twenty or thirty, as they 
 never made any regular stand. Our loss is very trifling in- 
 deed, only two officers and one or two privates wounded. 
 
 I find that the detachment of the enemy consisted of three 
 Hessian regiments of Anspach, Knyphausen, and Rahl, 
 amounting to about fifteen hundred men, and a troop of 
 British light-horse; but, immediately upon the beginning of 
 the attack, all those who were not killed or taken, pushed 
 directly down the road towards Bordentown. These would 
 likewise have fallen into our hands, could my plan have been 
 completely carried into execution. General Ewing was to 
 have crossed before day at Trenton Ferry, and taking pos- 
 session of the bridge leading out of the town; but the 
 quantity of ice was so great, that, though he did everything 
 in his power to effect it, he could not get over. This diffi- 
 culty also hindered General Cadwalader from crossing with 
 the Pennsylvania militia from Bristol. He got part of hb 
 foot over; but, finding it impossible to embark his artillery, 
 he was obliged to desist. I am fully confident that, could 
 the troops under Generals Ewing and Cadwalader have 
 passed the river, I should have been able with their assistance 
 to drive the enemy from all their posts below Trenton. But
 
 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 275 
 
 the numbers I had with me being inferior to theirs below me, 
 and a strong battalion of light infantry being at Princeton 
 above me, I thought it most prudent to return the same 
 evening with the prisoners and the artillery we had taken. 
 We found no stores of any consequence in the town. 
 
 In justice to the officers and men, I must add that their 
 behavior upon this occasion reflects the highest honor upon 
 them. The difficulty of passing the river in a very severe 
 night, and their march through a violent storm of snow and 
 hail, did not in the least abate their ardor; but, when they 
 came to the charge, each seemed to vie with the other in 
 pressing forward ; and were I to give a preference to any 
 particular corps, I should do great injustice to the others. 
 Colonel Baylor, my first aide-de-camp, will have the honor 
 of delivering this to you; and from him you may be made 
 acquainted with many other particulars. His spirited be- 
 havior upon every occasion requires me to recommend him 
 to your particular notice. I have the honor to be, etc. 
 
 (The Writings of George Washington. By Jared Sparks. 
 Vol. IV, p. 246.)
 
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