Actium was fought on the Adriatic off the promontory on the west coast of Greece. Here half the world was bartered for one fleeing galley and one woman. While the conflict was yet doubtful and victory seemed even favorably inclined to perch upon the prow of Anthony’s vessel, the barge of Cleopatra shudderingly backed out from the bloody fray, wavered, turned, and sped southward. Marc Anthony followed. Upon the defeat of the allied Roman and Egyptian forces at Actium and over the tragically dead forms of Anthony and Cleopatra, Octavius Cæsar arose to world dominance, becoming Augustus Cæsar, Emperor, Pater Patriæ, and one man Ruler of Rome, Mistress of the world.
Lepanto was fought at the entrance of the Gulf of Corinth, not far from Actium. Here the Cross triumphed over the Crescent and rescued Europe from the deadly blight of Islamism. Don John of Austria, aged twenty-four, led the Christian forces; Alexander Farnese (Prince of Parma), then a youth of twenty, won here his first of many laurels under the generously approving eyes of his young cousin-commander, Don John.
And seventeen years later (1571-1588) the Prince of Parma, Captain general of all the Spanish armies, awaited impatiently at Dunkirk for Admiral Medina Sidonia to clear the channel of hostile vessels so that he and his veteran army might sail across and attack old England. He watched the fight off Gravelines. How his hot Spanish heart must have indignantly throbbed even to bursting, as helplessly cooped in port with a flotilla of unarmed barges to protect, and Lord Seymour with a strong blockading squadron at the mouth of the harbor, he could only see and know and acutely feel that a fearful battle was raging all day long from dawn till dark and that Spain was losing—Spain had lost. One by one hurrying northward past the Flemish ports limped the disabled Spanish ships; English and Dutch cruisers followed in fierce pursuit.
The invasion of England by way of the Thames, the conquest of an inveterate foe, Success proudly placing a flaming carbuncle upon the coronet of the Prince of Parma, the approving glance of Philip and of the fair girl-queen Isabella, Spanish dominance in the old and in the new world—all as burst bubbles died down in gray mist as twilight descended, as dark night gathered over the wave and the world and the fleeing scattered shattered ships of Spain’s vincible Armada.
[Chapter XII.]
NASEBY
The battle of Naseby was, perhaps, the anticipative preventive of an English “French Revolution.” The difference between Cromwell’s Ironsides and the gay Frondeurs measures the difference between the English people and the French.
Charles I. aimed to be in England what Louis XIV. was in France. Both fully believed in the divine right of Kings; both quoted as their favorite text of Scripture, “Where the word of a King is there is power; and who may say unto him ‘What doest thou?’” But Louis dealt with the fickle Frondeurs and Charles with Cromwell’s Ironsides; and this racial difference had as divergent results—absolutism for Louis le Grand and the block for Charles Stuart.
There will always be difference of opinion as to Cromwell’s place in history. Was he liberator or tyrant, Christian ruler or barbarously fanatic despot? There can be but one opinion as to the injustice of the trial, condemnation, and death of Charles. The Rump Parliament was certainly not representative of England. It was Cromwell’s creature as arbitrarily as ever the Star Chamber was Charles’.