Attila.
History has not done justice to Attila. History has not done justice to any lost cause. For the winners, not the losers, are the writers as well as the makers of history, and all forces combine to make them unjust to the lost cause.
Herodotus gives us the story of Marathon, Thermopylæ, Platæa, Salamis; Persia had no Herodotus: Homer extols the exploits of the Grecian army, the valor of Achilles; but Hector had no Homer: Roman historians tell the story of the Punic wars; Carthage from her desolate site sown with salt cares not what they say, whilst Hannibal, bravest of the brave, and supreme military genius, speaks on the historic page only from the lips of the hated Romans.
When Protestantism finally won in England and the long able reign of Elizabeth established it firmly upon a political basis, then were fulminated against the Church of Rome all those unjust accusations and gross misrepresentations which, crystallized in history and in literature, seem ineradicable as fate. But truth is older than history or literature, and more analytically powerful than the synthetic forces of crystallization, and patiently prevalent even over fate.
Elizabeth’s very legitimacy depended upon the establishment of Protestantism in England and the overthrow of Catholicity; and to this two-fold end the energies of the very astute daughter of Henry VIII. were undeviatingly directed.
It takes about three hundred years from the time of a cataclysmic upheaval of any kind before the minds of men can view it dispassionately or estimate it without bias. But what are three hundred years to age-old Truth?
Elizabeth possessed, in addition to the terse Tudor qualities, the rare gift of foresight. She knew the power of the pen and the possibilities for fame or infamy in the men of genius of her time. And so her court was open to the great men of that day and her smile of patronage was ever ready to welcome poet, artist, dramatist, politician, warrior, traveler, historian, and statesman: she became all to all and she won all.
As Gloriana in Spenser’s immortal “Færie Queen” she reigns forever. Bacon, Spenser, Sidney Smith, Raleigh, Voltaire—as Voices having a thousand echoes throughout the years—have amply rewarded that patient foresight and have fixed her in fame as—what she was to them—Good Queen Bess.
And so Attila and his Huns in low long sinuously winding northern lines left behind them the carnage strewn plain of Chalons, and the camp with its ominous pyre, and the dazed foe. And thus victory remained to Ætius, last of the Romans: and the field of Chalons which saved civilization and semi-civilization from an untimely intrusion of rank barbarism; which secured domination to the Teutonic race rather than to the Sarmatic; which freed Europe from Asia—was the last victory of imperial Rome.
Attila died two years later; some say as the victim of poison secretly mixed with his food by Ætius’ ever vigilant spies. With him his vast empire passed away: and the leader who once claimed as proud titles,—“Atzel, Descendant of the Great Nimrod. By the Grace of God, King of the Huns, the Goths, the Danes, and the Medes. The Dread of the World”—died ignominiously one carousal wedding night: and history, ever unjust to a lost cause, writes his name among the Almosts and calmly commends the destiny by which Attila and his Hunnish hordes were defeated in the great battle of Chalons.