“And that he do appoint one or two English women of the said town of Berwick who shall be in no wise suspected, who understand to serve the said Countess with meat and drink, and all things pertaining to her.
“And that he do so well and strictly guard her in the cage, that she speak to none, and that no man or woman of the Scotch nation, nor any other appear before her, but only the woman or women who shall be assigned her, and those who shall have guard of her.
“And that the cage be so made, that the Countess may have there the convenience of a fair chamber, but that it be so well and surely ordered, that no danger may betide in respect of the custody of the said Countess.
“And that he who has care of her be charged to answer for her, body for body, and that he be allowed her expenses.
“In like manner it is ordered that Mary, sister of Robert Bruce, sometime Earl of Carrick, be sent to Roxburgh, to be kept there in the castle, in a cage.”[106]
The reader will not sympathise much with the harshness of Bajazet’s durance, if he knows the character of that redoubtable conqueror. The following passage will convey a fair idea of it, and presents a good specimen of the style of the 15th century:—
“In the year 1396, Sigismond, King of Hungry, sent sweet and amyable letters to the French king by a notable ambassador, a bysshop and two knights of Hungry. In the same letters was contayned a greate parte of the state and doyng of the greate Turke (Bajazet), and how that he had sent worde to the King of Hungry, that he would come and fight with him in the middes of his realme, and would go fro thens to the cytie of Rome, and would make his horse to eate otes upon the high altar of Saynt Peter, and there to hold his see imperiale. Thus the King of Hungry in his letters prayed the French king to ayde and succour him.”[107] In consequence of this application, a strong body of French and other knights marched into Hungary, under command of John of Burgundy, Earl of Nevers. They crossed the Danube, and after a successful campaign were besieging Nicopolis in union with the Hungarian forces, when Bajazet marched to the relief of that city. The loss of the battle which ensued is attributed by Froissart to the precipitance of the French knights, who led the van, and rushed madly into combat, against the order of the King of Hungary, and without waiting for his support. The biographer of the Marshal Boucicaut, on the other hand, throws the whole blame upon the cowardly desertion of the Hungarians. However this may be, the French charged in a body not exceeding 700 men,[108] routed the first body of Bajazet’s cavalry, and penetrated through a line of stakes, behind which the infantry were formed. “Then the noble Frenchmen, like men already enraged at the loss which they had endured, ran upon them with such valour and hardihood that they frightened all. I may not say how they laid upon them. For never did foaming boar, or angry wolf, shew a fiercer recklessness of life. There the valiant Marshal of France, Boucicaut, among other brave men, thrust himself into the thickest press, and well proved whether he were grieved or no. For there without fail did he so many acts of arms, that all marvelled, and there bore himself so knightly, that whoso saw him still avers there never was any man, knight or other, seen to do in one day more brave and valiant acts than he did then.”[109] The Earl of Nevers, the Lord of Coucy, and the other French nobility well approved their valour; but Boucicaut, if we may trust his biographer, was the hero of the day. Mounted on a powerful war–horse, he spurred forwards, and struck so fiercely to the right and to the left that he overthrew everything before him. “And ever doing thus, he advanced so far, which is a marvellous thing to relate, and yet true, as all who saw it can bear witness, that he cut through the whole Saracen array, and then returned back through them to his comrades. Heaven, what a knight! God protect his valour! Pity will it be when life shall fail him! But it will not be so yet, for God will protect him. Thus fought our countrymen as long as their strength lasted. Ah, what pity for so noble a company, approved so gentle, so chivalrous, so excellent in arms, which could have succour from no quarter, so ran they in to their enemies’ throats, so as is the iron on the anvil![110] For they were surrounded and oppressed so fatally on all sides that they could no longer resist. And what wonder? for there were more than twenty Saracens against one Christian! And yet our people killed more than 20,000 of them, but at last they could exert themselves no more. Ah, what a misfortune, what pity! Ought not those disloyal Christians to have been hanged who thus falsely abandoned them? Shame fall upon them, for had they helped the valiant French and their comrades with good will, not Bajazet nor one of his Turks would have escaped death or captivity, which would have been a mighty good to all Christendom.
“Great pity was there again the morrow of this dolorous battle. For Bajazet, sitting within a tent in the midst of the field, caused to be led before him the Earl of Nevers and those of his lineage, with all the French barons, knights, and esquires who remained after the slaughter of that field. Sad was it to see these noble youths, in the prime of life, of blood so lofty as that of the royal line of France, fast bound with ropes, disarmed, in their under doublets, conducted by these ugly, frightful dogs of Saracens before the tyrant enemy of the faith who sat there. He knew for certain, through good interpreters, that the Earl of Nevers was grandson and cousin–german to a king of France, and that his father was a duke of great power and wealth, and that others were of the same blood and nearly related to the king. So he bethought himself, that for preserving them he might have great treasure: therefore he did not put them to death, nor any other of the greatest barons, but made them sit there on the ground before him. Alas! immediately after began the cruel sacrifice. For then were led before him the noble Christian barons, knights, and esquires, naked; and then, as they paint on the walls King Herod sitting on a chair, and the Innocents cut in pieces before him, there were our faithful Christians cut in pieces by these Saracen curs before the Earl of Nevers and under his very eyes. So you may understand, you who hear this, what grief went to his heart, good and kind lord as he is, and what pain it gave him to see thus martyred his good and loyal companions, and his people that had been so faithful to him, and who were so distinguished for gallantry. Certes I think he was so grieved at heart, that fain would he have been of their company in that slaughter. And so the Turks led them one after another to martyrdom, as men led in old times the blessed martyrs, and struck their heads and chests and shoulders fearfully with great knives, and felled them without mercy. Well may one know with what woful countenances they went in that sad procession. For even as the butcher drags a lamb to the slaughter, so were our good Christians, without a word being spoken, led to die before the tyrant. But notwithstanding that their death was hard and their case pitiful, every good Christian should esteem them thrice fortunate, and born in a happy hour, to receive such a death. For they must sometime have died, and God gave them grace to die in the advancement of the Christian religion, the holiest and worthiest death (as we in our faith hold) that a Christian can die; and also he made them to be the companions of the blessed martyrs, the happiest of all the orders of Saints in Paradise. For there is no doubt but that they are Saints in Paradise, if they met their fate with good will. In this piteous procession was Boucicaut, the Marshal of France, naked, except his small clothes (petits draps). But God, who willed not to lose his servant, for the sake of the good service which he was to do thereafter, as well in avenging the death of that glorious company upon the Saracens, as in the other great benefits which were to follow from his talents and by his means, caused the Earl of Nevers to look at the Marshal and the Marshal at him right sorrowfully, at the very moment that some one was about to strike him. Then was the foresaid Earl wonderfully vexed at heart for the death of such a man, and he called to mind the great good, the prowess, loyalty, and valour that were in him. So, on a sudden, God put it in his mind to clasp his hands together as he looked at Bajazet, and he made sign that the Marshal was to him as a brother, and that he should respite him: which sign Bajazet soon understood, and released him. When this stern execution was complete, and the whole field was strewed with the bodies of these blessed martyrs, as many French as others of divers countries, that cursed Bajazet arose, and ordered the Marshal, who had been so respited, to be committed to prison in a large handsome town of Turkey, called Bursa. So his bidding was done, and he was kept there till the arrival of the said Bajazet.”[111]
Innumerable instances of the like ferocity might be produced from Eastern history. Rowe’s polished and pious Tamerlane put to death 100,000 persons in the streets of Delhi. Few men have so well and fairly estimated their own character, and the class to which they belong, as did Nadir Shah, when to the remonstrance, “If thou art a king, cherish and protect thy people,—if a prophet, shew us the way of salvation,—if a God, be merciful to thy creatures,” he replied, “I am neither a king to protect my subjects, nor a prophet to teach the way of salvation, nor a God to exercise the attribute of mercy; but I am he whom the Almighty has sent in his wrath to chastise a world of sinners.” The following anecdote, striking in itself, is the more interesting as an exception to a general rule: “In the year 1068 Alp Arslan, the second sultan of Persia, of the Seljukian dynasty, defeated and took prisoner Romanus Diogenes, husband of Eudocia, the reigning empress of Constantinople. He treated his prisoner with extreme kindness and distinction; he uttered no reproaches that could wound a humbled monarch, but gave vent to the honest indignation of a warrior at the base and cowardly conduct of those who had deserted and abandoned so brave a leader. We are told that he asked his captive at their first conference, what he would have done if fortune had reversed their lot. ‘I would have given thee many a stripe,’ was the imprudent and virulent answer. This expression of haughty and unsubdued spirit excited no anger in the brave and generous conqueror. He only smiled, and asked Romanus what he expected would be done to him? ‘If thou art cruel,’ said the emperor, ‘put me to death. If vain–glorious, load me with chains, and drag me to thy capital. If generous, grant me my liberty!’ Alp Arslan was neither cruel nor vain–glorious: he released his prisoner, gave all his officers who were captives dresses of honour, and distinguished them by every mark of friendship and regard.”[112]
Far from wishing to cast an undue reproach upon the past by these melancholy details of cruelty and suffering, we should have been glad to relieve the narrative by more numerous instances of generosity and mercy. But that these virtues are not the attributes of a savage race, will readily be granted by all: that they are not necessarily the fruit of refinement and civilization (if that term be applicable to an advanced stage of art and knowledge, without a corresponding improvement in moral wisdom) is shown by the universal experience of the past, and nowhere more forcibly than in the history of Greece and Rome. The progress of society seems only to have taught one lesson; that it is better to make the conquered subservient to the profit or amusement of the conqueror, than to put him to death, like any other formidable or offensive animal. In man’s earliest and rudest condition, as a hunter, slaves are worse than useless; for sustenance is of more value than labour, and the precarious supply of the chase is insufficient to provide permanently and plentifully for his own wants. The avenging or preventing encroachments upon each other’s hunting–ground is therefore a most frequent cause of warfare among neighbouring tribes, and the massacre of the conquered is prompted equally by revenge and policy. We find accordingly that in North America a prisoner’s only chance of escape lay in being adopted into the hostile tribe in the place of some one who had fallen in battle. The still more savage practice of feasting upon prisoners is sufficiently proved to have existed at a very recent period in New Zealand. In other heathen countries they have been reserved from indiscriminate slaughter, only to perish on the altars of false gods. But labour becomes valuable, and the command of labour an advantage, in proportion as men emerge from barbarism, and apply themselves to agriculture, or a pastoral life; and when it is found out that a prisoner’s services may be made worth more than his maintenance, the policy of the victor changes, and he preserves an enemy whom formerly he was almost compelled to destroy. Slavery, therefore, is, in the infancy of nations, an index of increasing civilization, and an amelioration of human misery, since the bulk of mankind have ever hailed with joy a respite from death, even though existence be attended with degradation and suffering. A generous spirit, indeed, would be little gratified at receiving life upon terms of hopeless servitude; yet even to such the introduction of slave labour lightened the evils of defeat. When men were detained merely for the value of their services, it was natural to release them if an equivalent for that value were paid, and hence arose the custom of admitting prisoners to ransom, which exercised a two–fold influence in favour of slaves: first by enabling them to acquire freedom at the sacrifice of wealth; secondly, by removing the utter hopelessness and degradation of their state, and introducing a possibility that the slave and master might some day be replaced in their original relation to each other. This practice was familiar in the Homeric age, though revenge or the heat of battle often caused mercy and interest to be alike disregarded. Melancholy indeed was the fate of a captured city. The adult males were usually slaughtered, the females and children reserved for slavery; those even of the highest rank were employed as menial servants in the victor’s household. “What evils,” says Priam, “does Jupiter reserve me to behold on the threshold of age! My sons slain, my daughters dragged into slavery, my chambers plundered, the very infants dashed against the ground in mournful warfare, and my sons’ wives dragged by the destructive hands of the Greeks. The dogs which I fed in my palace, at my own table, to protect it, will tear me, even me, stretched dead at the outer door, as they lie ravening in the vestibule lapping my blood. To a young man it is becoming to lie slain in warfare, pierced by the sharp sword; to such nothing that can happen in death is unseemly. But that dogs should defile the grey head and the grey beard of a slaughtered elder, this is the mournfulest thing that happens to wretched mortals.”[113]