Yet amongst them, let us give one word of admiration to that brave Irish Abbess,—Ebba of Coldingham, who, to preserve herself from the brutality of the Danish soldiers, cut off her nose and lips. Her nuns followed her example, and the enraged barbarians burnt them all, together with their convent.
To whom do we owe the preservation of the New Testament but to the heroic girl-martyrs among the first Christians, who, under the Roman persecutors, endured unheard-of tortures, rather than betray the hiding place of the Sacred Writings?
En passant I may mention the first woman who used her literary abilities to support her household, was Christine Castel, a French woman by education, though by birth a Venetian. She lived in the reign of the English king Henry IV.
Have you ever heard of Arnande de Rocas? She must have been a brave, high-minded girl! When her native town was taken by the Turks,— somewhere in the clark sixteenth century, when Turks were not the civilized gentlemen that many of them now are,—she and a number of her young and beautiful companions were placed in a vessel bound for Constantinople,—their destination the Sultan's seraglio. In the dead of night, she gained access to the powder magazine, and blew up the ship, with her innocent companions and their captors.
Now let us come nearer home, and recal the name of Martha Bratton. She was a woman for any country to be proud of, for she helped, hand and heart, in establishing the freedom of her native country. Her husband was a Colonel in the first army of America, and in his absence she took charge of, and defended the ammunition and supplies. Think of her courage in blowing up the powder, rather than suffer it to fall into the enemy's hands! Think of her nobility avowing the act that no one else might suffer for it. Threats of instant death had no power to make her betray a trust. And she was a womanly woman too, for she saved the life of an English officer, who had rescued her by his intervention, and kept him concealed in her house till he was exchanged.
Grizel Cochrane! It's not a romantic name, but what a romance in her life.
Her father lay a prisoner in the Tolbooth of Edinburgh, condemned to death for high treason. Her grandfather, the Earl of Dundonald; was moving heaven and earth to obtain his son's pardon. But it was known that the warrant for his execution was on its way from London.
Grizel was only eighteen. But she was strong and resolute. She rode on her own fleet horse two days on the road to England, where a trusty friend lent her a suit of man's clothes and a pair of pistols. Thus armed, she attacked the postman, robbed him of the mail bags, and destroyed her father's death warrant. The time thus gained saved his life.
A better Grizel this, I think, than the celebrated Grizel who is so often held up as a model of womanly virtues.
Think of the peasant girl, inspired by spirit voices, throwing aside the timidity of her country breeding, her youth, and her sex, adopting the costume of a soldier, heading the armies of France, leading them to victory, and placing the national crown upon the head of the feeble Dauphin, much more of a girl than herself. Then change the scene, and behold the bigoted and fanatical priests conspiring against her; see her abandoned by her friends; abandoned even by the English whom she had conquered; see her at last led forth to the fatal pile, and her ashes cast into the Seine.