History for ready reference, Volume 3, Greece to Nibelungen

by J. N. Larned

of the Garigliano, November 9. "Here their progress was
arrested. … The seasons themselves were hostile to the
French; heavy rains set in with a constancy quite unusual in
that climate; and the French soldiers perished by hundreds in
the mud and swamps of the Garigliano. The Spanish army,
encamped near Sessa, was better supplied and better
disciplined; and at length, after two months of inaction,
Gonsalvo, having received some reinforcements, assumed the
offensive, and in his turn crossed the river. The French,
whose quarters were widely dispersed, were not prepared for
this attack, and attempted to fall back upon Gaeta; but their
retreat soon became a disorderly flight; many threw down their
arms without striking a blow; and hence the affair has
sometimes been called the rout of the Garigliano [December 29,
1503]. Peter de' Medici, who was following the French army,
perished in this retreat. … Very few of the French army
found their way back to France. Gaeta surrendered at the first
summons, January 1st, 1504. This was the most important of all
Gonsalvo's victories, as it completed the conquest of Naples.
The two attacks on Spain had also miscarried. … A truce of
five months was concluded, November 15th, which was
subsequently converted into a peace of three years."
T. H. Dyer,
History of Modern Europe,
book 1, chapters 5-6 (volume 1).
ALSO IN:
L. von Ranke,
History of the Latin and Teutonic Nations, 1494-1514,
book 1, chapter 4,
and book 2, chapter 1.
T. A. Trollope,
History of the Commonwealth of Florence,
book 9, chapters 8-9 (volume 4).
M. J. Quintana,
The Great Captain
(Lives of Celebrated Spaniards)
G. P. R. James,
Memoirs of Great Commanders,
volume 1: Gonzalvez de Cordoba.
L. Larchey,
History of Bayard,
book 2.
ITALY: A. D. 1504-1506.
The Treaties of Blois.
Tortuous diplomacy of Louis XII.
His double renunciation of Naples.
"There was danger [to Louis XII. of France] that the loss of
the Milanese should follow that of the kingdom of Naples.
Maximilian was already preparing to assert his imperial rights
beyond the Alps, and Gonsalvo de Cordova was marching toward
the northern part of the peninsula. Louis XII. divided and
disarmed his enemies by three treaties, signed at Blois on the
same day (1504). By the first Louis and Maximilian agreed to
attack Venice, and to divide the spoil; by the second Louis
promised the king of the Romans 200,000 francs in return for
the investiture of the Milanese; by the third he renounced the
kingdom of Naples in favor of Maximilian's grandson Charles,
who was to marry Claude,' daughter of Louis XII., and receive
as her dowry three French provinces,—Burgundy, Brittany, and
Blois. A more disastrous agreement could not have been made.
Charles was to obtain by inheritance from his father, Philip
the Handsome, the Netherlands; from his mother, Castile; from
his paternal grandfather, Austria; from his maternal
grandfather, Aragon. And now he was assured of Italy, and
France was to be dismembered for him. This was virtually
giving him the empire of Europe. France protested, and Louis
XII. seized the first occasion to respond to her wishes. He
found it in 1505, when Ferdinand the Catholic married Germaine
de Foix, niece of Louis XII. Louis by treaty made a second
cession of his rights over the kingdom of Naples to his niece,
thus breaking one of the principal conditions of his treaty
with Maximilian. He convoked the States-General at Tours in
order openly to break the others (1506).
{1837}
The Assembly declared that the fundamental law of the state
did not permit alienations of the domains of the crown, and
besought the king to give his daughter in marriage to his heir
presumptive, Francis, Duke of Angoulême, in order to insure
the integrity of the territory and the independence of France.
Louis XII. found little difficulty in acceding to their
request. Maximilian and Ferdinand were at the time unable to
protest."
V. Duruy,
History of France,
chapter 38.
ITALY: A. D. 1508-1509.
The League of Cambrai against Venice.
The continental provinces of the Republic torn away.
See VENICE: A. D. 1508-1509.
ITALY: A. D. 1510-1513.
Dissolution of the League of Cambrai and formation of the Holy
League against France.
The French expelled from Milan and all Italy.
Restoration of the Medici.
Recovery of Venetian territories.
As the League of Cambrai began to weaken and fall in pieces,
the vigorous republic of Venice "came forth again, retook
Padua, and kept it through a long and terrible siege, at last
forcing the Emperor to withdraw and send back his French
allies. The Venetians recovered Vicenza, and threatened
Verona; Maximilian, once more powerless, appealed to France to
defend his conquests. Thus things stood [1510] when Julius II.
made peace with Venice and began to look round him for allies
against Louis XII. He negotiated with the foreign kings; but
that was only in order thereby to neutralise their influence,
sowing discord among them; it was on the Swiss mercenaries
that he really leant. Now that he had gained all he wanted on
the northern frontier of the States of the Church, he thought
that he might safely undertake the high duty of protecting
Italy against the foreigner: he would accomplish what Cæsar
Borgia had but dreamed of doing, he would chase the Barbarian
from the sacred soil of culture. … He 'thanked God,' when he
heard of the death of the Cardinal of Amboise, 'that now he
was Pope alone!' … He at once set himself to secure the
Swiss, and found a ready and capable agent in Matthew
Schynner, Bishop of Sion in the Valais. … Bishop Schynner
was rewarded for this traffic with a cardinal's hat. And now,
deprived by death of the guiding hand [of Cardinal d'Amboise],
Louis XII. began to follow a difficult and dangerous line of
policy: he called a National Council at Tours, and laid before
it, as a case of conscience, the question whether he might
make war on the Pope. The Council at once declared for the
King, distinguishing, as well they might under Julius II.,
between the temporal and the spiritual in the Papacy, and
declaring that any papal censure that might be launched would
be null and void. Above all, an appeal was made to a General
Council. … Meanwhile war went on in Italy. A broadly-planned
attack on the Milanese, on Genoa, and Ferrara, concerted by
Julius II. with the Venetians and Swiss, had come to nothing.
Now the warlike pontiff—one knows his grim face from
Raphael's picture, and his nervous grasp of the arms of his
chair, as though he were about to spring forward into
action—took the field in person. At Bologna he fell ill; they
thought he would die; and Chaumont of Amboise was marching up
with the French at his heels to surround and take him there.
But by skilful treating with the French general Julius gained
time, till a strong force of Venetians had entered Bologna.
Then the Pope rose from his sick-bed, in the dead of winter,
1511, and marched out to besiege Mirandola," which
capitulated. "Bayard soon after attacked him, and all but took
him prisoner. A congress at Mantua followed: but the Pope
sternly refused to make terms with the French: the war must go
on. Then Louis took a dangerous step. He convoked an
ecclesiastical council at Pisa, and struck a medal to express
his contempt and hatred for Julius II. … The Pope had gone
back to Rome, and Bologna had opened her gates to the French;
the coming council, which should depose Julius, was proclaimed
through Northern Italy. But, though the moment seemed
favourable, nothing but a real agreement of the European
powers could give success to such a step. And how far men were
from such an agreement Louis was soon to learn; for Julius,
finding that the French did not invade the States of the
Church, resumed negociations with such success that in October
1511 a 'Holy League' was formed between the Pope, Venice,
Ferdinand of Aragon, and Henry VIII. of England. Maximilian
wavered and doubted; the Swiss were to be had—on payment. At
first Louis showed a bold front; in spite of this strange
whirl of the wheel of politics from the League of Cambrai to
the Holy League, he persevered, giving the command of Milan to
his nephew, Gaston of Foix, Duke of Nemours, a man of 23
years, the most promising of his younger captains. He relieved
Bologna, seized Brescia, and pillaged it [1512]; and then
pushed on to attack Ravenna; it is said that the booty of
Brescia was so great that the French soldiers, having made
their fortunes, deserted in crowds, and left the army much
weakened. With this diminished force Gaston found himself
caught between the hostile walls of Ravenna, and a relieving
force of Spaniards, separated from him only by a canal. The
Spaniards, after their usual way of warfare, made an
entrenched camp round their position. The French first tried
to take the city by assault; but being driven back, determined
to attack the Spanish camp." They made the assault [on Easter
Day, 1512] and took the camp, with great slaughter; but in his
reckless pursuit of the retreating enemy Gaston de Foix was
slain. "The death of the young Prince more than balanced the
great victory of the day: for with Gaston, as Guicciardini
says, perished all the vigour of the French army. … Though
Ravenna was taken, the French could no longer support
themselves. Their communications with Milan were threatened by
the Swiss: they left garrisons in the strong places and fell
back. The council of Pisa also had to take refuge at Milan.
When the Swiss came down from their mountain-passes to restore
the Sforza dynasty, the harassed council broke up from Milan,
and fled to Lyons; there it lingered a while, but it had
become contemptible; anon it vanished into thin air. The Pope
retook Bologna, Parma, Piacenza; the Medici returned to
Florence [see FLORENCE: A. D. 1502-1569]; Maximilian Sforza
was re-established [see MILAN: A. D. 1512], while the Grisons
Leagues received the Valteline as their reward: the English
annoyed the coast without any decisive result. … Ferdinand
seized Navarre, which henceforward became Spanish to the
Pyrenees.
{1838}
Before winter, not one foot of Italian soil remained to the
French. Julius II., the formidable centre of the Alliance,
died at this moment (1513). … The allies secured the
election of a Medicean Pope, Leo X., a pontiff hostile to
France, and certain not to reverse that side of his
predecessor's policy. … Louis, finding himself menaced on
every side, suddenly turned about and offered his friendship
to Venice. … Natural tendencies overbore all resentments on
both sides, and a treaty between them both guaranteed the
Milanese to Louis and gave him a strong force of Venetian
soldiers. Meanwhile, Ferdinand had come to terms with
Maximilian and boyish Henry VIII., who … had framed a scheme
for the overthrow of France. The French king, instead of
staying at home to defend his frontiers, was eager to retake
Milan, and to join hands with the Venetians. … But the Swiss
round Maximilian Sforza defended him without fear or
treachery; and catching the French troops under La Trémoille
in a wretched position not far from Novara, attacked and
utterly defeated them (1513). The French withdrew beyond the
Alps; the Venetians were driven off with great loss by the
Spaniards, who ravaged their mainland territories down to the
water's edge. For the short remainder of his life Louis XII.
had no leisure again to try his fortunes in Italy: he was too
busy elsewhere."
G. W. Kitchin,
History of France,
volume 2, book 2, chapter 3.
ALSO IN:
P. Villari,
Life and Times of Machiavelli,
book 1, chapters 12-14 (volume 3).
M. Creighton,
History of the Papacy,
book 5, chapters 15-16 (volume 4).
L. von Ranke,
History of the Latin and Teutonic Nations
from 1494 to 1514,
book 2, chapter 3.
Sir R. Comyn,
History of the Western Empire,
chapters 37-38 (volume 2).
L. Larchey,
History of Bayard,
book 2, chapters 21-44.
H. E. Napier,
Florentine History,
book 2, chapter 9 (volume 4).
ITALY: A. D. 1515-1516.
Invasion and reconquest of Milan by Francis I.
His treaty with the Pope.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1515; and 1515-1518.
ITALY: A. D. 1516-1517.
Abortive attempt against Milan by the Emperor, Maximilian.
His peace with Venice and surrender of Verona.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1516-1517.
ITALY: A. D. 1520-1542.
Early Reformation movements
and their want of popular support.
The Council of Trent.
See PAPACY: A. D. 1537-1563.
ITALY: A. D. 1521-1522.
Re-expulsion of the French from Milan.
The treason of the Constable Bourbon.
His appointment to the command of the Imperial army.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1520-1523.
ITALY: A. D. 1523-1527.
The double dealings of Pope Clement VII.
Invasion of Milanese by Francis I. and his defeat and capture
at Pavia.
The Holy League against Charles V.
The attack on Rome by Constable Bourbon.
Giulio de' Medici, natural son of Guiliano de' Medici, and
cousin of Leo X., had succeeded Adrian VI. in the Papacy in
1523, under the name of Clement VII. "Nothing could have been
more unfortunate than the new Pope's first steps on the
zig-zag path which he proposed to follow. Becoming alarmed at
the preponderating power of Charles [the Fifth, Emperor, King
of Spain and Naples; Duke of Burgundy, and ruler of all the
Netherlands, in 1524 be entered into a league with Francis
[the First, king of France];
See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1496-1526;
and GERMANY: A. D. 1519.
but scarcely had this been concluded when the memorable battle
of Pavia resulting in the entire defeat of the French, on the
24th of February, 1525, and the captivity of the French king,
frightened him back again into seeking anew the friendship of
Charles, in April of that year.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1523-1525
Each of these successive treaties was of course duly sworn to
and declared inviolable; but it could hardly be expected that
he who exercised the power of annulling other men's oaths
would submit to be bound by his own, when the observance of
them became inconvenient. Clement accordingly was not
prevented by the solemn treaty of April, 1525, from conspiring
against his new ally in the July following. The object of this
conspiracy was to induce Ferdinando Francesco d'Avalos,
Marquis of Pescara, who commanded the army of Charles V.
before Milan, to revolt against his sovereign, and join the
Italians in an attempt to put an end for ever to Spanish sway
in Italy. … But the Spanish general had no sooner secured
clear evidence of the plans of the conspirators, by pretending
to listen to their proposals, than he reported the whole to
Charles. The miscarriage of this scheme, and the exposure
consequent upon it, necessarily threw the vacillating and
terrified Pontiff once more into the arms of Francis. 'The
Most Christian'—as the old Italian historians often
elliptically call the Kings of France—obtained his release
from his Madrid prison by promising on oath, on the 17th of
January, 1526, all that Charles, driving a hard bargain, chose
to demand of him.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1525-1526.
And Clement hastened to prove the sincerity of his renewed
friendship by a professional contribution to the success of
their new alliance, in the welcome shape of a plenary
absolution from all observance of the oaths so sworn. … On
the 22nd of May following [at Cognac], the Pope entered into a
formal league with Francis [called 'Holy' for the reason that
the Pope was a party to it]. Venice joined her troops to those
of the Ecclesiastical States, and they marched together to the
support of the Milanese, who had risen in revolt against the
Emperor. Assistance had also been promised by Henry of
England, who had stipulated, however, that he should not be
named as a party to the alliance, but only considered as its
protector. This was the most strenuous and most united attempt
Italy had yet made to rid herself of the domination of the
stranger, and patriotic hopes beat high in several Italian
hearts. … It may be easily imagined that the 'Most Catholic'
monarch [Charles V.] felt towards Clement at this time in a
manner which led him to distinguish very nicely between the
infallible head of the universal Church and the sovereign of
the Ecclesiastical States. … Though he retained the utmost
respect and reverence for the vicegerent of heaven, he thought
that a little correction administered to the sovereign of Rome
would not be amiss, and nothing could be easier than to find
means ready to his hand for the infliction of it. The Colonnas
were of course ready for a rebellion on the slightest
encouragement. … So when Don Ugo di Moncada, Charles's
general at Naples, proposed to the Colonnas to join him in a
little frolic at Clement's expense, the noble and most
reverend members of that powerful family jumped at the
proposal. … The united forces of the Viceroy and the
Colonnas accordingly one morning entered Rome, altogether
without opposition, and marched at once to the Vatican.
{1839}
They completely sacked, not only the Pope's palace, and the
residences of many gentlemen and prelates, but also, says the
historian [Varchi], 'with unheard-of avarice and impiety,'
robbed the sacristy of St. Peter of everything it contained.
Clement had barely time to escape into the castle of St.
Angelo; but as he found there neither soldiers nor ammunition,
nor even food for above three days, … he consented to a
treaty by which the Pope agreed to pardon the Colonnas freely
for all they had done against him; to take no steps to revenge
himself on them; to withdraw his troops from Lombardy; and to
undertake nothing in any way, or under any pretext, against
the Emperor." As a hostage for the fulfilment of this treaty,
Pope Clement gave his dear friend Filippo Strozzi; but no
sooner was he delivered from his captors than he hired seven
"black companies" of adventurers and 2,000 Swiss, and began a
furious war of extermination upon the Colonnas and all their
dependents. At the same time he wrote private letters to the
heads of his "Holy League," "warning them to pay no heed to
any statement respecting a treaty made by him with the
Emperor, and assuring them of his intention to carry on the
war with the utmost energy." A little later, however, this
remarkable Holy Father found it convenient to make another
treaty with the Viceroy of Naples, for the release of his
friend Strozzi, which bound him still more to friendly
relations with the Emperor. This latter treaty, of March,
1527, "would seem in some sort to imply the reconciliation
once again of the Pope and the Emperor." But Charles had
already set forces in motion for the chastisement of the
faithless Pope and his allies, which either he could not or
did not care to arrest. "The Constable Bourbon, whom the gross
injustice of Francis I., and the intolerable persecution of
his infamous mother, Louise de Savoie, had driven to abandon
his country and allegiance [see FRANCE: A. D. 1520-1523], …
was now … marching southwards, with the imperial troops, to
chastise the different members of the League against the
Emperor, which Clement, as has been seen, had formed. George
Frundsberg, a German leader of reputation, had also crossed
the Alps with 15,000 men,—'all Lutherans and Lanzknechts,' as
the Italians write with horror and dismay,—and had joined
these forces to the Spaniards under Bourbon. … The combined
force was in all respects more like a rabble rout of brigands
and bandits than an army; and was assuredly such as must, even
in those days, have been felt to be a disgrace to any
sovereign permitting them to call themselves his soldiers.
Their pay was, as was often the case with the troops of
Charles V., hopelessly in arrear, and discipline was of course
proportionably weak among them. … The progress southward of
this bandit army … filled the cities exposed to their inroad
with terror and dismay. They had passed like a destroying
locust swarm over Bologna and Imola, and crossing the
Apennines, which separate Umbria from Tuscany, had descended
into the valley of the Arno not far from Arezzo. Florence and
Rome both trembled. On which would the storm burst? That was
the all-absorbing question. Pope Clement, with his usual
avarice-blinded imbecility, had, immediately on concluding the
above-mentioned treaty with the Neapolitan viceroy, discharged
all his troops except a body-guard of about 600 men. Florence
was nearly in as defenceless a position"; but a small army of
the League, under the Duke of Urbino, was at Incisa, and it
was "probably the presence of this army, little as it had
hitherto done to impede the progress of the enemy, which
decided Bourbon eventually to determine on marching towards
Rome. It seems doubtful how far they were in so doing,
executing the orders, or carrying out the wishes, of the
Emperor. … Upon the whole we are warranted in supposing that
Bourbon and Frundsberg would hardly have ventured on the
course they took, if they had not had reason to believe that
it would not much displease their master. … On the 5th of
May [1527] Bourbon arrived beneath the walls of Rome. … On
the evening of the 6th of May the city was stormed and given
over to the unbridled cupidity and brutality of the soldiers.
… Bourbon himself had fallen in the first moments of the
attack."
T. A. Trollope,
History of the Commonwealth of Florence,
book 10, chapter 3 (volume 4).
ALSO IN:
T. A. Trollope,
Filippo Strozzi,
chapter 7.
W. Robertson,
History of the Reign of Charles V.,
book 4 (volume 2).
L. von Ranke,
History of the Reformation in Germany,
book 4, chapters 1-3.
ITALY: A. D. 1527.
The Sack of Rome by the Spanish and German Imperialists.
"Bourbon fell at the first assault; but by evening the Vatican
suburb was in the hands of the enemy. Clement, who was even
best informed of the state of things, had not anticipated such
an issue. He scarcely saved himself by flight from the Vatican
to the castle of St. Angelo, whither the fugitive population
hurried, as the shipwrecked crew of an entire fleet hastens to
a single boat which cannot receive them. In the midst of the
thronging stream of men, the portcullis was lowered. Whoever
remained without was lost. Benvenuto Cellini was at that time
in Rome, and was among the defenders of the walls. He boasted
that his ball had destroyed Bourbon. He stole fortunately into
the citadel, before it was closed, and entered the Pope's
service as bombardier. Even at this last moment, Clement might
have saved Rome itself, which, situated on the opposite shore
of the river, had not yet been entered by the enemy. They
offered to spare it for a ransom; but finding this too high,
and awaiting hourly Urbino's army, to which, though nothing
was yet to be seen of it, he looked as a deliverer in the time
of need, he would hear nothing of it. And thus the undefended
city fell into the hands of the imperialists. Almost without
resistance they entered Trastevere, a small quarter of the
city lying to the west of the Tiber; and then crossing the
bridges, which no one had demolished, they pressed forwards
into the heart of Rome. It was the depth of the night.
Benvenuto Cellini was stationed on the tower of the castle of
St. Angelo, at the foot of the colossal angel, and saw the
flames bursting forth in the darkness, and heard the sorrowful
cry all around. For it was late before the soldiers began to
cast off all restraint. They had entered quietly. The Germans
stood in battalions. But when they saw the Spaniards broken up
and plundering, the desire was aroused in them also; and now a
spirit of emulation appeared, as to which nation could outdo
the other in cruelty. The Spaniards, it is asserted by
impartial Italians, carried the day.
{1840}
There had been no siege, no bombardment, no flight of any
great extent; but as if the earth had opened, and had
disgorged a legion of devils, so suddenly came these hosts.
Everything was in a moment abandoned to them. We must
endeavour to conceive what kind of men these German soldiers
were. They formed an intermediate class between the prime and
the refuse of the people. Gathered together by the hope of
booty, indifferent what end was assigned them, rendered wild
by hunger and tardy pay, left without a master after the death
of their commander, they found themselves unrestrained in the
most luxurious city of the world—a city abounding with gold
and riches, and at the same time decried for centuries in
Germany, as the infernal nest of the popes, who lived there as
incarnate devils, in the midst of their Babylonian doings. The
opinion that the pope of Rome, and Clement VII. in particular,
was the devil, prevailed not only in Germany, but in Italy and
in Rome the people called him so. In the midst of plague and
famine he had doubled the taxes and raised the price of bread.
What with the Romans, however, was an invective arising from
indignation, was an article of faith among the Germans. They
believed they had to do with the real antichrist, whose
destruction would be a benefit to Christendom. We must
remember, if we would understand this fury of the German
soldiery, in whose minds, as in those of all Germans, Lutheran
ideas at that time prevailed, how Rome had been preached and
written upon in the north. The city was represented to people
as a vast abyss of sin; the men as villains, from the lowest
up to the cardinals; the women as courtesans; the business of
all as deceit, theft, and murder; and the robbing and deluding
of men that had for centuries been emanating from Rome, was
regarded as the universal disease from which the world was
languishing. Thither for centuries the gold of Germany had
flowed; there had emperors been humbled or poisoned; from Rome
every evil had sprung. And thus, while satiating themselves
with rapine and murder, they believed a good work was being
done for the welfare of Christendom, and for the avenge of
Germany. Never, however—this we know—does the nature of man
exhibit itself more beast-like, than when it becomes furious
for the sake of ideas of the highest character. Before the
castle of St. Angelo, which, carefully fortified with walls
and fosses, alone afforded resistance, the German soldiers
proclaimed Martin Luther as pope. Luther's name was at that
time a war-cry against pope and priestcraft. The rude
multitude surmised not what Luther desired when he attacked
the papacy. In front of St. Peter's church, they represented
an imitation of the papal election with the sacred garments
and utensils. They compelled one priest to give extreme
unction to a dying mule. One protested that he would not rest
until he had consumed a piece of the pope's flesh. It is true,
Italians for the most part relate this, but the German reports
themselves do not deny the excessive barbarity which was
permitted. Ten millions of precious metal was carried away.
How much blood did this money involve, and what was done to
those from whom it was taken? Fewer were put to death than
were plundered, says one of the records, but what does that
imply? It is true, the Germans often quarrelled with the
Spaniards, because the horrors which they saw them practise
were too terrible for them. Otherwise the sparing of human
life was less an act of clemency than of covetousness.
Prisoners of war were at that time regarded as slaves; they
were carried away as personal property, or a ransom was
extorted. … This system was carried to a great pitch in
Rome. The possessors of palaces were obliged to purchase their
ransom, the Spanish cardinals as well as the Italian—no
difference was made. Thus at least escape was possible. …
And as the people were treated, so were the things. Upon the
inlaid marble floor of the Vatican, where the Prince of Orange
took up his abode—the command of the army devolving upon him
after Bourbon's death—the soldiers lighted their fire. The
splendid stained glass windows, executed by William of
Marseilles, were broken for the sake of the lead. Raphael's
tapestries were pronounced excellent booty; in the paintings
on the walls the eyes were put out; and valuable documents
were given as straw to the horses which stood in the Sistine
Chapel. The statues in the streets were thrown down; the
images of the Mother of God in the churches were broken to
pieces. For six months the city thus remained in the power of
the soldiery, who had lost all discipline, Pestilence and
famine appeared. Rome had more than 90,000 inhabitants under
Leo X.; when Clement VII. returned a year after the conquest,
scarcely a third of that number then existed—poor, famished
people, who had remained behind, because they knew not whither
to turn. All this lay on the conscience of the man who now for
months had been condemned to look down upon this misery from
the castle of St. Angelo, in which the Spaniards held him
completely blockaded, and where pestilence and want of
provisions appeared just as much as down below in Rome. At
last, after waiting day after day, he saw Urbino's army
approaching from afar: their watch-fires were to be perceived;
and every moment he expected that the duke would attack and
deliver the city. But he moved not. It is thought he intended
now to avenge the rapine which the Medici under Leo. X. had
carried on against him. … After having rested for some time
in sight of the city, in which the imperialists had opened
their intrenchments round the castle of St. Angelo for a
regular siege, he withdrew back again to the north, and left
the pope to his fate."
H. Grimm,
Life of Michael Angelo,
chapter 10, section 3 (volume 2).
ALSO IN:
Benvenuto Cellini,
Life,
translated by J. A. Symonds,
book 1, sections 34-38 (volume 1).
Benvenuto Cellini,
Life,
translated by T. Roscoe,
chapter 7.
J. S. Brewer,
The Reign of Henry VIII.,
chapter 25 (volume 2).
ITALY: A. D. 1527-1529.
Siege and captivity of the Pope.
New league against the Emperor.
French invasion and disastrous siege of Naples.
Genoese independence recovered.
Treaties of Barcelona and Cambrai.
Francis renounces all pretensions beyond the Alps.
Charles V. supreme.
Shut up in Castle St. Angelo, the Pope, Clement VII.,
"deprived of every resource, and reduced to such extremity of
famine as to feed on asses' flesh, was obliged to capitulate
on such conditions as the conquerors were pleased to
prescribe. He agreed to pay 400,000 ducats to the army; to
surrender to the emperor all the places of strength belonging
to the Church; and, besides giving hostages, to remain a
prisoner himself until the chief articles were performed. …
The account of this extraordinary and unexpected event was no
less surprising than agreeable to the emperor.
{1841}
But in order to conceal his joy from his subjects, who were
filled with horror at the success and crimes of their
countrymen, and to lessen the indignation of the rest of
Europe, he declared that Rome had been assaulted without any
order from him. He wrote to all the princes with whom he was
in alliance, disclaiming his having had any knowledge of
Bourbon's intention. He put himself and court into mourning;
commanded the rejoicings which had been ordered for the birth
of his son Philip to be stopped; and, employing an artifice no
less hypocritical than gross, he appointed prayers and
processions throughout all Spain for the recovery of the
pope's liberty, which, by an order to his generals, he could
have immediately granted him. … Francis and Henry [of France
and England], alarmed at the progress of the imperial arms in
Italy, had, even before the taking of Rome, entered into a
closer alliance; and, in order to give some check to the
emperor's ambition, had agreed to make a vigorous diversion in
the Low Countries. The force of every motive which had
influenced them at that time was now increased; and to these
was added the desire of rescuing the pope out of the emperor's
hands, a measure no less politic than it appeared to be pious.
This, however, rendered it necessary to abandon their hostile
intentions against the Low Countries, and to make Italy the
seat of war. … Besides all … public considerations, Henry
was influenced by one of a more private nature: having begun,
about this time, to form his great scheme of divorcing
Catharine of Aragon, towards the execution of which he knew
that the sanction of papal authority would be necessary, he
was desirous to acquire as much merit as possible with
Clement, by appearing to be the chief instrument of his
deliverance. … Henry … entered so eagerly into this new
alliance, that, in order to give Francis the strongest proof
of his friendship and respect, he formally renounced the
ancient claim of the English monarchs to the crown of France,
which had long been the pride and ruin of the nation; as a
full compensation for which he accepted a pension of 50,000
crowns, to be paid annually to himself and his successors. The
pope, being unable to fulfil the conditions of his
capitulation, still remained a prisoner. … The Florentines
no sooner heard of what had happened at Rome, than they ran to
arms … and, declaring themselves a free state, reëstablished
their ancient popular government.
See FLORENCE: A. D.1502-1569.
The Venetians, taking advantage of the calamity of their ally,
the pope, seized Ravenna, and other places belonging to the
church, under pretext of keeping them in deposite." On the
other hand, Lannoy, Charles' viceroy at Naples, "marched to
Rome, together with Moncada and the Marquis del Guasto, at the
head of all the troops which they could assemble in the
kingdom of Naples. The arrival of this reinforcement brought
new calamities on the unhappy citizens of Rome; for the
soldiers, envying the wealth of their companions, imitated
their license, and with the utmost rapacity gathered the
gleanings which had escaped the avarice of the Spaniards and
Germans. There was not now any army in Italy capable of making
head against the imperialists." But the troops who had enjoyed
months of license and riotous pillage in Rome could not be
brought back to discipline, and refused to quit the perishing
city. They had chosen for their general the Prince of Orange,
who "was obliged to pay more attention to their humours than
they did to his commands. … This gave the king of France and
the Venetians leisure to form new schemes, and to enter into
new arrangements for delivering the pope, and preserving the
liberties of Italy. The newly-restored republic of Florence
very imprudently joined with them, and Lautrec … was …
appointed generalissimo of the league. … The best troops in
France marched under his command; and the king of England,
though he had not yet declared war against the emperor,
advanced a considerable sum towards carrying on the
expedition. Lautrec's first operations [1527] were prudent,
vigorous and successful. By the assistance of Andrew Doria,
the ablest sea-officer of that age, he rendered himself master
of Genoa, and reëstablished in that republic the faction of
the Fregosi, together with the dominion of France. He obliged
Alexandria to surrender after a short siege, and reduced all
the country on that side of the Tessino. He took Pavia, which
had so long resisted the arms of his sovereign, by assault,
and plundered it with … cruelty. … But Lautrec durst not
complete a conquest which would have been so honourable to
himself and of such advantage to the league. Francis … was
afraid that, if Sforza were once reëstablished in Milan, they
[his confederates] would second but coldly the attack which he
intended to make on the kingdom of Naples. … Happily the
importunities of the pope and the solicitations of the
Florentines, the one for relief, and the other for protection,
were so urgent as to furnish him with a decent pretext for
marching forward. … While Lautrec advanced slowly towards
Rome, the emperor" came to terms with the pope, and Clement
obtained his liberty at the cost of 350,000 crowns, a tenth of
the ecclesiastical revenues of Spain, and an agreement to take
no part in the war against Charles. The latter next made
overtures to the French king, offering some relaxation of the
treaty of Madrid; but they were received in a manner that
irritated even his cold temper. He, in turn, provoked his
antagonist, until a ridiculous exchange of defiances to
personal combat passed between them. Meantime "Lautrec
continued his operations, which promised to be more decisive.
His army, which was now increased to 35,000 men, advanced by
great marches towards Naples." The remains of the imperial
army retreated, as he advanced, from Rome, where it had held
riot for ten months, and took shelter behind the
fortifications of the Neapolitan capital. Lautrec undertook
(April, 1528) the siege of Naples, with the co-operation of
the Genoese admiral, Doria, who blockaded its port. But he was
neglected by his own frivolous king, and received little aid
from the Pope, the king of England, or other confederates of
the league. Moreover, Doria and the Genoese suffered treatment
so insolent, oppressive and threatening, from the French court
that the former opened negotiations with the emperor for a
transfer of his services. "Charles, fully sensible of the
importance of such an acquisition, granted him whatever terms
he required.
{1842}
Doria sent back his commission, together with the collar of
St. Michael, to Francis, and, hoisting the imperial colours,
sailed with all his galleys towards Naples, not to block up
the harbour of that unhappy city, as he had formerly engaged,
but to bring them protection and deliverance. His arrival
opened the communication with the sea, and restored plenty in
Naples, which was now reduced to the last extremity; and the
French … were soon reduced to great straits for want of
provisions." With the heat of summer came pestilence; Lautrec
died, and the wasted French army, attempting to retreat, was
forced to lay down its arms and march under guard to the
frontiers of France. "The loss of Genoa followed immediately
upon the ruin of the army in Naples." Doria took possession of
the town; the French garrison in the citadel capitulated
(September 12, 1528), and the citadel was destroyed. "It was
now in Doria's power to have rendered himself the sovereign of
his country, which he had so happily delivered from
oppression." But he magnanimously refused any preeminence
among his fellow citizens. "Twelve persons were elected to
new-model the constitution of the republic. The influence of
Doria's virtue and example communicated itself to his
countrymen; the factions which had long torn and ruined the
state seemed to be forgotten; prudent precautions were taken
to prevent their reviving; and the same form of government
which hath subsisted with little variation since that time in
Genoa, was established with universal applause." In Lombardy,
the French army, under St. Pol, was surprised, defeated and
ruined at Landriano (June, 1529), as completely as the army in
Naples had been a few months before. All parties were now
desirous of peace, but feared to seem too eager in making
overtures. Two women took the negotiations in hand and carried
them to a conclusion. "These were Margaret of Austria,
dutchess dowager of Savoy, the emperor's aunt, and Louise,
Francis's mother. They agreed on an interview at Cambray, and,
being lodged in two adjoining houses, between which a
communication was opened, met together without ceremony or
observation, and held daily conferences, to which no person
whatever was admitted." The result was a treaty signed August
5, 1529, known as the Peace of Cambray, or "the Ladies'
Peace," or "Peace of the Dames." By its terms, Francis was to
pay 2,000,000 crowns for the ransom of his sons; restore such
towns as he still held in the Milanese; resign and renounce
his pretensions to Naples, Milan, Genoa, and every other place
beyond the Alps, as well as to Flanders and Artois; and
consummate his marriage with the emperor's sister, Eleanora.
On the other hand, the emperor only agreed not to press his
claims on Burgundy, for the present, but reserved them, in
full force. Another treaty, that of Barcelona, had already, in
1529, been concluded between the emperor and the pope. The
former gave up the papal states which he occupied, and agreed
to reëstablish the dominion of the Medici in Florence; besides
giving his natural daughter in marriage to Alexander, the head
of that family. In return he received the investiture of
Naples, absolution for all concerned in the plundering of
Rome, and the grant to himself and his brother of a fourth of
the ecclesiastical revenues throughout their dominions.
W. Robertson,
History of the Reign of Charles V.,
books 4-5.
ALSO IN:
F. P. Guizot,
Popular History of France,
chapter 28.
C. Coignat,
Francis I. and his Times,
chapter 9.
G. B. Malleson,
Studies from Genoese History,
chapter 1.
ITALY: (Southern): A. D. 1528-1570.
Naples under the Spanish Viceroys.
Ravages of the Turks along the coast.
Successful revolt against the Inquisition.
Unsuccessful French invasion under Guise.
"After the memorable and unfortunate expedition of Lautrec, in
1528, Philibert of Chalons, Prince of Orange, who commanded
the Imperial army, exercised the severest vengeance [in
Naples] on the persons and estates of all those nobles who had
joined the French, or who appeared to demonstrate any
attachment towards that nation. … These multiplied … acts
of oppression received no effectual redress during the short
administration [1529-1532] of Cardinal Colonna, who succeeded
to the Prince of Orange. … In the place of Cardinal Colonna
was substituted Don Pedro de Toledo, who governed Naples with
almost unlimited powers, during the space of near 21 years.
His viceroyalty, which forms a memorable Epocha in the annals
of the country, demands and fixes attention. We are impressed
with horror at finding, by his own confession, … that during
the progress of his administration, he put to death near
18,000 persons, by the hand of the executioner. Yet a fact
still more extraordinary is that Giannoné, himself a
Neapolitan, and one of the ablest as well as most impartial
historians whom the 18th century has produced, not only
acquits, but even commends Toledo's severity, as equally
wholesome and necessary," on account of the terrible
lawlessness and disorder which he found in the country. "The
inflexible and stern character of the viceroy speedily
redressed these grievances, and finally restored order in the
capital. … All the provinces experienced equal attention,
and became the objects of his personal inspection. The
unprotected coasts of Calabria and of Apulia, subject to the
continual devastation of the Turks, who landed from their
gallies, were fortified with towers and beacons to announce
the enemy's approach. … Repeated attempts were made by
Solyman II., Emperor of the Turks, either alone or in
conjunction with the fleets of France, to effect the conquest
of Naples, during this period: but the exertions of Toledo
were happily attended with success in repulsing the Turkish
invaders. … In no part of the middle ages … were the
coasts of Naples and Sicily so frequently plundered, ravaged,
and desolated, as at this period. Thousands of persons of both
sexes, and of all conditions, were carried off by Barbarossa,
Dragut, Sinan, and the other Bashaws, or admirals of the
Porte. Not content with landing on the shores and ravaging the
provinces, their squadrons perpetually appeared in sight of
Naples; laid waste the islands of Ischia and Procida, situate
in its immediate vicinity; attacked the towns of Pouzzoli and
Baiæ; and committed every outrage of wanton barbarity. … The
invasion of 1552, when Dragut blocked up the harbour of
Naples, with 150 large gallies, during near four weeks, spread
still greater consternation; and if the fleet of France had
arrived, as had been concerted, it is more than probable that
the city must have fallen into their hands. But the delays of
Henry II., Solyman's ally, proved its preservation. The
Turkish admiral, corrupted by a present of 200,000 ducats,
which the Viceroy found means of conveying to him, retired and
made sail for Constantinople. …
{1843}
The administration of Toledo … was … completely subverted
from the moment that he attempted [1546] to introduce the
Inquisition. … The Neapolitans, patient under every other
species of oppression, instantly revolted. … They even
forgot, in the general terror, the distinction of ranks; and
the Barons united with their fellow-citizens to oppose that
formidable tribunal. The Viceroy, returning to the capital,
reinforced by 3,000 veteran Spaniards, determined
nevertheless, to support the measure. Hostilities took place,
and the city, during near three months, was abandoned to
anarchy, while the inhabitants, having invested the castle,
besieged their governor. … The Emperor, convinced by
experience of the impracticability of success in his attempt,
at length desisted." Toledo died in 1553, and "was succeeded
by the Cardinal Pacheco, as Viceroy; and the abdication of
Charles V., in the following year, devolved on his son Philip
II. the sovereignty of Naples. Alarmed at the preparations
made by Henry II., King of France, in conjunction with Paul
IV., who had newly ascended the papal throne, Philip
dispatched Ferdinand, Duke of Alva, to the aid of his
Neapolitan subjects; and to the vigorous measures embraced by
him on his arrival was due the safety of the kingdom.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1547-1559.
… The administration of the Duke of Alcala, to whom Philip
delegated the supreme power soon after the recall of Alva
[1558], lasted near 12 years, and was marked by almost every
species of calamity."
Sir N. W. Wraxall,
History of France, 1574-1610,
chapter 9 (volume 2).
"The march of the Mareschal of Lautrec was the last important
attempt of the French to reconquer Naples. … Spain remained
in possession of this beautiful country for two centuries. …
Their [the Spaniards'] ascendancy was owing as well to an iron
discipline as to that inveterate character of their race, the
firmness of purpose which had gradually developed itself in
the long struggle for the country which they wrenched inch by
inch from their tenacious enemies. The Neapolitans found that
they had in the Spaniards different rulers from the French."
A. de Reumont,
The Carafas of Maddaloni:
Naples under Spanish Dominion,
book 1.
ITALY: A. D. 1529.
Siege of Florence by the Imperial forces.
Reinstatement of the Medici.
See FLORENCE: A. D. 1502-1569.
ITALY: A. D. 1530-1600.
Under the Spanish domination, and the Papacy of the
Counter-Reformation.
The Inquisition.
The Jesuits.
The Vice-regal rule.
Deplorable state of the country.
"It will be useful, at this point, to recapitulate the net
results of Charles's administration of Italian affairs in
1530. The kingdom of the Two Sicilies, with the island of
Sardinia and the Duchy of Milan, became Spanish provinces, and
were ruled henceforth by viceroys. The House of Este was
confirmed in the Duchy of Ferrara, including Modena and
Reggio. The Duchies of Savoy and Mantua and the Marquisate of
Montferrat, which had espoused the Spanish cause, were
undisturbed. Genoa and Siena, both of them avowed allies of
Spain, the former under Spanish protection, the latter subject
to Spanish coercion, remained with the name and empty
privileges of republics. Venice had made her peace with Spain,
and though she was still strong enough to pursue an
independent policy, she showed as yet no inclination, and had,
indeed, no power, to stir up enemies against the Spanish
autocrat. The Duchy of Urbino, recognised by Rome and
subservient to Spanish influence, was permitted to exist. The
Papacy once more assumed a haughty tone, relying on the firm
alliance struck with Spain. This league, as years went by, was
destined to grow still closer, still more fruitful of results.
Florence alone had been excepted from the articles of peace.
It was still enduring the horrors of the memorable siege when
Clement left Bologna at the end of May. … Finally, on August
12, the town capitulated. Alessandro de' Medici, who had
received the title of Duke of Florence from Charles at
Bologna, took up his residence there in July 1531, and held
the State by help of Spanish mercenaries under the command of
Alessandro Vitelli. … Though the people endured far less
misery from foreign armies in the period between 1530 and 1600
than they had done in the period from 1494 to 1527, yet the
state of the country grew ever more and more deplorable. This
was due in the first instance to the insane methods of
taxation adopted by the Spanish viceroys, who held monopolies
of corn and other necessary commodities in their hands, and
who invented imposts for the meanest articles of consumption.
Their example was followed by the Pope and petty princes. …
The settlement made by Charles V. in 1530, and the various
changes which took place in the duchies between that date and
the end of the century, had then the effect of rendering the
Papacy and Spain omnipotent in Italy. … What they only
partially effected in Europe at large, by means of S.
Bartholomew massacres, exterminations of Jews in Toledo and of
Mussulmans in Granada, holocausts of victims in the Low
Countries, wars against French Huguenots and German Lutherans,
naval expeditions and plots against the state of England,
assassinations of heretic princes, and occasional burning of
free thinkers, they achieved with plenary success in Italy.
… It is the tragic history of the eldest and most beautiful,
the noblest and most venerable, the freest and most gifted of
Europe's daughters, delivered over to the devilry that issued
from the most incompetent and arrogantly stupid of the
European sisterhood, and to the cruelty, inspired by panic, of
an impious theocracy. When we use these terms to designate the
Papacy of the Counter-Reformation, it is not that we forget
how many of those Popes were men of blameless private life and
serious views for Catholic Christendom. When we use these
terms to designate the Spanish race in the sixteenth century,
it is not that we are ignorant of Spanish chivalry and
colonising enterprise, of Spanish romance, or of the fact that
Spain produced great painters, great dramatists, and one great
novelist in the brief period of her glory. We use them
deliberately, however, in both cases; because the Papacy at
this period committed itself to a policy of immoral,
retrograde, and cowardly repression of the most generous of
human impulses under the pressure of selfish terror; because
the Spaniards abandoned themselves to a dark fiend of
religious fanaticism; because they were merciless in their
conquests and unintelligent in their administration of
subjugated provinces; because they glutted their lusts of
avarice and hatred on industrious folk of other creeds within
their borders; because they cultivated barren pride and
self-conceit in social life; because at the great epoch of
Europe's reawakening they chose the wrong side and adhered to
it with fatal obstinacy. …
{1844}
After the year 1530 seven Spanish devils entered Italy. These
were the devil of the Inquisition, with stake and
torture-room, and war declared against the will and soul and
heart and intellect of man; the devil of Jesuitry, with its
sham learning, shameless lying, and casuistical economy of
sins; the devil of vice-royal rule, with its life-draining
monopolies and gross incapacity for government; the devil of
an insolent soldiery, quartered on the people, clamorous for
pay, outrageous in their lusts and violences; the devil of
fantastical taxation, levying tolls upon the bare necessities
of life, and drying up the founts of national well-being at
their sources; the devil of petty-princedom, wallowing in
sloth and cruelty upon a pinchbeck throne; the devil of
effeminate hidalgoism, ruinous in expenditure, mean and
grasping, corrupt in private life, in public ostentatious,
vain of titles, cringing to its masters, arrogant to its
inferiors. In their train these brought with them seven other
devils, their pernicious offspring: idleness, disease,
brigandage, destitution, ignorance, superstition,
hypocritically sanctioned vice. These fourteen devils were
welcomed, entertained, and voluptuously lodged in all the
fairest provinces of Italy. The Popes opened wide for them the
gates of outraged and depopulated Rome. … After a tranquil
sojourn of some years in Italy, these devils had every where
spread desolation and corruption. Broad regions, like the
Patrimony of S. Peter and Calabria, were given over to
marauding bandits; wide tracts of fertile country, like the
Sienese Maremma, were abandoned to malaria; wolves prowled
through empty villages round Milan; in every city the
pestilence swept off its hundreds daily; manufactures,
commerce, agriculture, the industries of town and rural
district, ceased; the Courts swarmed with petty nobles, who
vaunted paltry titles, and resigned their wives to cicisbei
and their sons to sloth; art and learning languished; there
was not a man who ventured to speak out his thought or write
the truth; and over the Dead Sea of social putrefaction
floated the sickening oil of Jesuitical hypocrisy."
J. A. Symonds,
Renaissance in Italy: The Catholic Reaction,
part 1, chapter 1.
ITALY: A. D. 1536-1544.
French invasion of Piedmont.
French and Turkish siege of Nice.
Turkish ravages on the coast.
The Treaty of Crespy.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1532-1547.
ITALY: A. D. 1545-1556.
Creation of the duchy of Parma and Placentia,
under the rule of the House of Farnese.

See PARMA: A. D. 1545-1592.
ITALY: A. D. 1559-1580.
End of the French occupation of Savoy and Piedmont.
The notable reign of Emanuel Philibert.
See SAVOY AND PIEDMONT: A. D. 1559-1580;
and FRANCE: A. D. 1547-1559.
ITALY: A. D. 1559-1600.
Peace without Prosperity.
Foreign and domestic Despotism.
Exhaustion and helplessness of the country.
"From the epoch of the treaty of Château Cambresis [1559] to
the close of the 16th century, Italy remained, in one sense,
in profound and uninterrupted peace. During this long period
of 41 years, her provinces were neither troubled by a single
invasion of foreign armies, nor by any hostilities of
importance between her own feeble and nerveless powers. But
this half century presented, nevertheless, anything rather
than the aspect of public happiness and prosperity. Her
wretched people enjoyed none of the real blessings of peace.
Subject either to the oppressive yoke of their native despots,
or to the more general influence of the arch-tyrant of Spain,
they were abandoned to all the exactions of arbitrary
government, and compelled to lavish their blood in foreign
wars and in quarrels not their own. While France, torn by
religious and civil dissensions, sank for a time from her
political station among the powers of the continent, and was
no longer capable of affording protection or exciting
jealousy, Philip II. was left free to indulge in the peninsula
all the obdurate tyranny of his nature. … The popes were
interested in supporting his career of bigotry and religious
persecution; the other powers of Italy crouched before him in
abject submission. To feed the religious wars, in which he
embarked as a principal or an accessory, in the endeavour to
crush the protestant cause in France, in the Low Countries,
and in Germany, he drained Italy of her resources in money and
in men. … While the Italian soldiery fought with the courage
of freemen, they continued the slaves of a despot, and while
the Italian youth were consumed in transalpine warfare, their
suffering country groaned under an iron yoke, and was
abandoned a prey to the unresisted assaults of the infidels.
Her coasts, left without troops, or defences in fortifications
and shipping, were insulted and ravaged by the constant
descents of the corsairs of Turkey and Barbary. Her maritime
villages were burnt, her maritime population dragged off into
slavery; and her tyrants, while they denied the people the
power of defending themselves, were unable or careless also to
afford them protection and safety."
G. Procter,
History of Italy,
chapter 9.
ITALY: A. D. 1569.
Creation of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany.
See FLORENCE: A. D. 1502-1569.
ITALY: A. D. 1597.
Annexation of Ferrara to the States of the Church.
See PAPACY: A. D. 1597.
ITALY: A. D. 1605-1607.
Venice under the guidance of Fra Paolo Sarpi.
Successful contest of the Republic with the Papacy.
See VENICE: A. D. 1606-1607;
and PAPACY: A. D. 1605-1700.
ITALY: A. D. 1620-1626.
The Valtelline War.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1624-1626.
ITALY: A. D. 1627-1631.
Disputed succession to the Duchy of Mantua.
War of France with Spain, Savoy and the Emperor.
"About Christmas in the year 1627, Vincenzo II., Duke of
Mantua, of the house of Gonzaga, died without issue. His next
of kin, beyond all controversy, was Charles Gonzaga, Duke of
Nevers, whose family had settled in France some fifty years
before, and acquired by marriage the dukedoms of Nevers and
Rethel. Although there was a jealousy on the part both of
Austria and Spain that French influences should be introduced
into Upper Italy, there seems to have been no intention, in
the first instance, of depriving Charles of his Italian
inheritance. … But … when the old Duke Vincenzo's days
were evidently numbered, Charles's son, the young Duke of
Rethel, by collusion with the citizens, arrived at Mantua to
seize the throne which in a little while death would make
vacant."
{1845}
At the same time, he took from a convent in the city a young
girl who represented whatever claims might exist in the direct
native line, and married her, the pope granting a
dispensation. "Both the King of Spain and the Emperor … were
incensed by conduct which both must needs have regarded as
indicative of hostility, and the latter as an invasion of his
feudal rights. Spain flew to arms at once. The emperor
summoned the young duke before his tribunal, to answer the
charges of having seized the succession without his
investiture, and married his ward without his consent. …
Charles, supported by the promises of Richelieu, refused to
acknowledge the emperor's rights of superiority, or to submit
to his jurisdiction."
B. Chapman,
History of Gustavus Adolphus,
chapter 8.
"The emperor … sequestered the disputed territory, and a
Spanish army invaded Montferrat [embraced in the dominions of
the Duke of Mantua] and besieged Casale, the capital. Such was
the paramount importance attached by Richelieu to his
principle of opposition to the house of Austria, that he
induced Louis to cross the Alps in person with 36,000 men, in
order to establish the Duke of Nevers in his new possessions.
The king and the cardinal forced the pass of Susa in March,
1629, in spite of the Duke of Savoy, who was another
competitor for Montferrat, and so decisive was the superiority
of the French arms that the duke immediately afterward signed
a treaty of peace and alliance with Louis, by which he
undertook to procure the abandonment of the siege of Casale
and the retreat of the Spaniards into their own territory.
This engagement was fulfilled, and the Duke of Nevers took
possession of his dominions without farther contest. But the
triumph was too rapid and easy to be durable."
N. W. Jervis,
Students' History of France,
chapter 19.
"The Spaniards remained, however, in Milaness, ready to burst
again upon the Duke of Mantua. The king was in a hurry to
return to France, in order to finish the subjugation of the
Reformers in the south, commanded by the Duke of Rohan. The
cardinal placed little or no reliance upon the Duke of Savoy.
… A league … was formed between France, the republic of
Venice, the Duke of Mantua, and the Duke of Savoy, for the
defence of Italy in case of fresh aggression on the part of
the Spaniards; and the king, who had just concluded peace with
England, took the road back to France. Scarcely had the
cardinal joined him before Privas when an Imperialist army
advanced into the Grisons and, supported by the celebrated
Spanish general Spinola, laid siege to Mantua. Richelieu did
not hesitate: he entered Piedmont in the month of March, 1630,
to march before long on Pignerol, an important place
commanding the passage of the Alps; it, as well as the
citadel, was carried in a few days. … The Duke of Savoy was
furious, and had the soldiers who surrendered Pignerol cut in
pieces. The king [Louis XIII.] had put himself in motion to
join his army. … The inhabitants of Chambéry opened their
gates to him; Annecy and Montmélian succumbed after a few
days' siege; Maurienne in its entirety made its submission,
and the king fixed his quarters there, whilst the cardinal
pushed forward to Casale [the siege of which had been resumed
by Spinola] with the main body of the army. Rejoicings were
still going on for a success gained before Veillane over the
troops of the Duke of Savoy, when news arrived of the capture
of Mantua by the Imperialists. This was the finishing blow to
the ambitious and restless spirit of the Duke of Savoy. He saw
Mantua in the hands of the Spaniards, 'who never give back
aught of what falls into their power' … ; it was all hope
lost of an exchange which might have given him back Savoy; he
took to his bed and died on the 26th of July, 1630, telling
his son that peace must be made on any terms whatever." A
truce was arranged, followed by negotiations at Ratisbon, and
Casale was evacuated by both parties—the Spaniards having
had possession of the city, while the citadel was held by the
French. "It was only in the month of September, 1631, that the
states of Savoy and Mantua were finally evacuated by the
hostile troops. Pignerol had been given up to the new Duke of
Savoy, but a secret agreement had been entered into between
that prince and France: French soldiers remained concealed in
Pignerol; and they retook possession of the place in the name
of the king, who had purchased the town and its territory, to
secure himself a passage into Italy. … The affairs of the
emperor in Germany were in too bad a state for him to rekindle
war, and France kept Pignerol."
F. P. Guizot,
Popular History of France,
chapter 41.
"The peace left all parties very nearly in the condition in
which they were when the war began; the chief loser was the
emperor, who was now compelled to acknowledge De Nevers as
Duke of Mantua and Montserrat; and the chief gainer was the
Duke of Savoy, whose territories were enlarged by the addition
of Alba, Trino, and some portions of the territory of
Montserrat which lay nearest to his Piedmontese dominions.
France; too, made some permanent acquisitions to compensate
her for the cost of the war. She eluded the stipulation which
bound her to evacuate Casal, and Victor Amedée subsequently
suffered her to retain both that fortress and Pignerol, such
permission, as was generally believed, … having furnished
the secret reason which influenced Richelieu to consent to the
duke's obtaining the portion of Montserrat already mentioned,
the cardinal thus making the Duke of Mantua furnish the
equivalent for the acquisitions made by Louis."
C. D. Yonge,
History of France under the Bourbons,
chapter 7 (volume 1).
ITALY: A. D. 1631.
Annexation of Urbino to the States of the Church.
See PAPACY: A. D. 1605-1700.
ITALY: A. D. 1635.
Italian alliances of Richelieu against the Spaniards in Milan.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1634-1639.
ITALY: A. D. 1635-1659.
Invasion of Milanese by French and Italian armies.
Civil war and foreign war in Savoy and Piedmont.
The extraordinary siege of Turin.
Treaty of the Pyrenees.
Restoration of territory to Savoy.
"Richelieu … having obtained the alliance of the Dukes of
Savoy, Parma, and Mantua, and having secured the neutrality of
the Republics of Venice and Genoa, now bent all his efforts to
expel the Spaniards from Milan, which was at that time but
weakly defended. … In 1635, a French army of 15,000 men was
accordingly assembled in Dauphiny, and placed under the
command of Mareschal Crequi. Having crossed the Alps, it
formed a junction with 8,000 troops under the Duke of Parma,
and 12,000 under the Duke of Savoy, to whom the supreme
command of this formidable army of 35,000 men was entrusted.
{1846}
Such a force, if properly employed, ought to have proved
sufficient to overwhelm the Dutchy of Milan, in its present
unprotected condition. … But the confederates were long
detained by idle disputes among themselves, their
licentiousness and love of plunder." When they did advance
into Milanese, their campaign was ineffective, and they
finally "separated with mutual disgust," but "kept the field,
ravaging the open and fertile plains of Milan. They likewise
took possession of several towns, particularly Bremi, on the
Po. … On hearing of the distress of Milan, the King of Spain
took immediate steps for the relief of that bulwark of his
Italian power. In 1636 he appointed to its government Diego
Guzman, Marques of Leganez, who was a near relative of
Olivarez. … He had not long entered on the government
intrusted to him when he succeeded in expelling the enemy from
every spot in Milan, with exception of Bremi, which they still
retained. Milan having been thus delivered, Leganez
transferred the theatre of war to the States of the Duke of
Parma, and completely desolated those fertile regions,"
compelling the Duke to renounce his French alliance (1637).
"The Duke of Savoy, Victor Amadeus, did not long survive these
events; and it was strongly suspected, both in Spain and
Italy, though probably on no just grounds, that he had been
poisoned. … The demise of the Duke of Mantua occurred nearly
about the same period; and on the decease of these two
princes, the Court of Spain used every exertion to detach
their successors from the French confederacy. Its efforts
succeeded, at least to a certain extent, with the
Dutchess-dowager of Mantua. … But the Dutchess of Savoy, …
being the sister of Louis XIII., could not easily be drawn off
from the French interests. Olivarez [the Spanish minister],
despairing to gain this princess, excited by his intrigues the
brothers of the late Duke [Cardinal Maurice and Prince Thomas]
to dispute with her the title to the regency." Leganez, now
(1638) laid siege to Bremi, and Marshal Crequi, in attempting
to relieve the place, was killed by a cannon shot. "By the
loss of Bremi, the French were deprived of the last receptacle
for their supplies or forces in the Dutchy of Milan; and in
consequence of the death of Crequi, they had now no longer any
chief of their own nation in Italy. The few French nobility
who were still in the army returned to their own country, and
the soldiery dispersed into Montferrat and Piedmont. Leganez,
availing himself of this favourable posture of affairs,
marched straightway into Piedmont, at the head of an army of
20,000 men. … He first laid siege to Vercelli, which, from
its vicinity to Milan, had always afforded easy access for the
invasion of that dutchy, by the French and Savoyards." A new
French army, of 13,000 men, under Cardinal La Valette, was
sent to the relief of the place, but did not save it from
surrender. "After the capture of Vercelli, the light troops of
Leganez ravaged the principality of Piedmont as far as the
gates of Turin."
J. Dunlop,
Memoirs of Spain, from 1621 to 1700,
volume 1, chapter 4.
Fabert and Turenne were now sent from France to the assistance
of La Valette, "and soon changed the aspect of affairs.
Turenne aided powerfully in driving back Leganez and Prince
Thomas from Turin, in seizing Chivasso and in organizing a
decisive success." In November, 1639, the French, through want
of provisions, were forced to retreat to Carignano, repelling
an attack made upon them in the course of the retreat. The
command was now handed over to Turenne, "with instructions to
revictual the citadel of Turin, which was defended by French
troops against Prince Thomas, who had gained most of the town.
Turenne succeeded … in conveying food and munitions into the
citadel. In the following spring d'Harcourt [resuming command]
undertook to relieve Casale, which belonged to the Duke of
Mantua. … The place was besieged by Leganez." The attempt
succeeded, the besieging army was beaten, and the siege
raised. "After the relief of Casale d'Harcourt resolved, on
the advice of Turenne, to besiege Turin. The investment was
made on the 10th May, 1640. This siege offered a curious
spectacle; the citadel which the French held was besieged by
Prince Thomas, who held the town. He himself was besieged by
the French army, which in its turn was besieged in its lines
of circumvallation by the Spanish army of Leganez. The place
capitulated on the 17th September. … Prince Thomas
surrendered; Leganez recrossed the Po; Marie Christine [the
Dowager-Duchess] re-entered Turin; and d'Harcourt, being
recalled to France by the cardinal, left the command of the
army to Turenne."
H. M. Hozier,
Turenne,
chapter 2.
"The fall of Turin did not put an end to the civil war, but
its main exploits were limited to the taking of Cuneo by
Harcourt (September 15th, 1641), … and of Revel, which was
reduced by the Piedmontese troops who fought on the French
side. … In the meantime the Regent, no less than her
opponents, began to grow weary of the burdensome protection of
their respective allies. … Under such circumstances, a
reconciliation between the hostile parties became practicable,
and was indeed effected on the 24th of July, 1642. The Princes
were admitted to a share of the Regent's power, and from that
time they joined the French standard, and took from the
Spaniards most of the places they had themselves placed in
their hands. … In the meanwhile the great agitator of
Europe, Richelieu, had died (1642), and had been followed by
the King, Louis XIII., five months later. … The struggle
between the two great rival powers, France and Spain, scarcely
interrupted by the celebrated peace of Westphalia, which put
an end to the Thirty Years' War in the North, in 1648,
continued throughout the greatest part of this period; but the
rapid decline of Spain, the factions of Alessio in Sicily and
of Massaniello in Naples, as much paralysed the efforts of the
Court of Madrid as the disorders of the Fronde weakened that
of Paris. The warlike operations in North Italy were languid
and dull. The taking of Valenza by the French (September 3rd,
1656) is the greatest event on record, and even that [was]
void of results. By the treaty of the Pyrenees (November 17th,
1059) Savoy was restored to her possessions, and Vercelli was
evacuated by the Spaniards. The citadel of Turin had been
given up by the French two years before, owing to the
influence of Mazarin, who married on that occasion his niece
Olimpia Mancini to Eugene Maurice, son of Thomas, Prince of
Carignano, and first cousin to Charles Emanuel II. From that
union, it is well known, was born in Paris, in 1663, Prince
Eugene of Savoy.
{1847}
The French nation were highly displeased at the loss of the
Turin citadel, and never forgave the Cardinal this mere act of
just and tardy restitution. Pinerola and Perosa, however,
still remained in their hands, and placed the Court of Turin
entirely at their discretion. During all this lapse of years,
and until the latter end of the century, the history of
Piedmont presents but a melancholy blank."
A. Gallenga,
History of Piedmont,
volume 3, chapter 2.
ITALY: A. D. 1646-1654.
French hostility to the Pope.
Siege of Orbitello.
Masaniello's revolt at Naples.
French intrigue and failures.
"The war [of France and Spain] in Italy had for some years
languished, but hostility to the Pope [on the election of
Innocent X., which Cardinal Mazarin, then supreme in France,
had opposed] stirred it again into life. New vessels were
fitted out for the navy, and large preparations were made for
the invasion of Italy. … On April 26, 1646, the expedition
set sail, and on the 9th of May it cast anchor off the
important city of Orbitello. The fleet consisted of 156 sail,
and was expected to land 10,000 men, and Mazarin wrote that
all Italy was in terror. The ships were commanded by the Duke
of Brézé, and no more skilful or gallant leader could have
been found. … The command of the land forces was, however,
entrusted to a leader whose deficiencies more than
counterbalanced Brézé's skill. Mazarin desired an Italian
prince to lead his expedition, and Prince Thomas of Savoy had
been chosen for the command. … Fearing that disease would
come with the hot weather, Mazarin urged Prince Thomas to
press forward with the siege. But the most simple advances
seemed beyond his skill. … A severe misfortune to the navy
made the situation worse. In a sharp and successful engagement
with the Spanish fleet, a cannon ball struck and killed the
Duke of Brézé. His death was more disastrous than would have
been the loss of 20 sail. The French fleet retired to Provence
and left the sea open to the Spanish. Sickness was fast
reducing the army on land, and on July 18th Prince Thomas
raised the siege, which was no further advanced than when it
was begun, and led back the remains of his command to
Piedmont. … So mortifying an end to this expensive venture
only strengthened Mazarin's resolution to make his power felt
in Italy. The battered ships and fever-wasted soldiers were
scarcely back in Provence, when the minister began to prepare
a second expedition for the same end. … By September a fleet
of 200 sail, with an army of 8,000 men commanded by the
Marshals of La Meilleraie and Du Plessis, was under way. The
expedition was conducted with skill and success. Orbitello was
not again attacked, but Porto Longone, on the island of Elba,
and Piombino, on the mainland, both places of much strategic
importance, were captured after brief sieges. With this result
came at once the change in the feelings of Innocent X. for
which Mazarin had hoped," and certain objects of the latter's
desire—including a cardinal's hat for his brother
Michael—were brought within his reach. His attention was now
turned to the more southerly portion of the peninsula. "During
the expedition to Orbitello in 1646, Mazarin had closely
watched Naples, whose coming revolution he foresaw. The
ill-suppressed discontents of the city now showed themselves
in disturbances, sudden and erratic as the eruptions of
Vesuvius, and they offered to France an opportunity for
seizing the richest of the remaining possessions of Spain.
After the vicissitudes of centuries, Naples and Sicily were
now subject to the Spanish crown. They were governed by a
viceroy, and were subjected to the drain of men and money
which was the result of Spain's necessities and the
characteristic of her rule. Burdened with taxation, they
complained that their viceroy, the Duke of Arcos, was sending
to Spain money raised solely for their own defence. The
imposition of a duty on fruits, in a country where fruit
formed a cheap article of diet for the poor, and where almost
all were poor, kindled the long smouldering discontent. Under
the leadership of a fisherman [Tommaso Aniello], nicknamed
Masaniello, the people of Naples in 1647 rose in revolt.
Springing from utter obscurity, this young man of
twenty-seven, poor and illiterate, became powerful almost in a
day. While the Duke of Arcos hid himself away from the revolt,
Masaniello was made Captain-General of Naples. So sudden a
change turned his head. At first he had been bold, popular,
and judicious. He sought only, he said, to deliver the people
from their taxes, and when that was done, he would return
again to selling soles and red mullets. But political delirium
seized him when he reached an elevation which, for him, was as
dizzy as the throne of the Roman emperors, and like some who
reached that terrible eminence, his brain was crazed by the
bewilderment and ecstasy of power. He made wild and incoherent
speeches. He tore his garments, crying out against popular
ingratitude, attacking groups of passers-by, riding his horse
wildly through the multitude, and striking with his lance to
the right and left. The populace wearied of its darling.
Exalted to power on July 7th, he was murdered on the 16th,
with the approval of those who had worshipped him a week
before. But the revolution did not perish with him. Successive
chiefs were chosen and deposed by a fickle people. When the
insurrection was active, the representatives of Spain promised
untaxed fruits and the privileges allowed by Charles V., and
they revoked their promises when it appeared to subside. In
the meantime, Mazarin watched the movement, uncertain as to
the course he should pursue. … While the minister hesitated,
the chance was seized by one who was never accused of too
great caution." This was the Duke of Guise—the fifth Henry of
that Dukedom—a wild, madcap young nobleman, who accepted an
invitation from the Neapolitan insurgents to become their
chief. Guise landed at Naples on the 15th of November, 1647,
with half a dozen attendants, and a month later he was
followed by a French fleet. But the latter did nothing, and
Guise was helplessly without means. "The truth was that
Mazarin, even if desirous of crippling the Spaniards, was very
averse to assisting Guise. He believed that the duke either
desired to form a republic, of which he should be chief, or a
monarchy, of which he should be king, and neither plan was
agreeable to the cardinal." At the end of a fortnight the
fleet sailed away. Guise held his ground as the leader of the
revolt until the following April, when certain of the
Neapolitan patriots, corrupted by the enemy, betrayed the city
into the hands of the Spaniards.
{1848}
"Guise endeavored, with a handful of followers, to escape
towards Capua, but they were captured by a detachment of
Spaniards. … By the petition of powerful friends, and by the
avowal of France, Guise was saved from the public execution
which some of his enemies demanded, but he was presently taken
to Spain, and there was kept a prisoner during four years."
Meantime, Mazarin had prepared another expedition, which
appeared before Naples in the summer of 1648, but only to
discover that the opportunity for deriving any advantage from
the popular discontent in that city was past. "Receiving no
popular aid, the expedition, after some ineffective endeavors,
was abandoned." Six years afterwards, in 1654, Mazarin sent a
third expedition to Naples, and entrusted it to the command of
the Duke of Guise, who had lately been released from his
captivity in Spain. "Guise hoped that the Neapolitans would
rise in revolt when it was known that their former leader was
so near, but not a person in the city showed any desire to
start a movement in behalf of the Duke of Guise. The Spanish
met him with superior forces." After some slight encounters
the expedition sailed back to France.
J. B. Perkins,
France under Mazarin,
chapter 8 (volume 1),
and chapter 16 (volume 2).
ALSO IN:
A. De Reumont,
The Carafas of Maddaloni:
Naples under Spanish Dominion,
book 3.
F. Midon,
Rise and Fall of Masaniello.
Mrs. H. R. St. John,
Masaniello of Naples.
H. G. Smith,
Romance of History,
chapter 1.
ITALY: A. D. 1648.
The Peace of Westphalia.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1648.
ITALY: A. D. 1701-1713.
Savoy and Piedmont.
The War of the Spanish Succession.
The Peace of Utrecht.
"Compelled to take part, with one of the contending parties
[in the War of the Spanish Succession—see SPAIN: A. D.
1698-1700, and 1701-1702], Victor [Duke of Savoy] would have
been prompted by his interest to an alliance with Austria; but
he was beset on all sides by the combined forces of France and
Spain, and was all the more at their mercy as Louis XIV. had
(April 5th, 1701) obtained from Ferdinand Gonzaga of Mantua
permission to garrison his capital, in those days already one
of the strongest places in Italy. The Duke of Savoy had
already, in 1697, married his daughter, Adelaide, to one of
Louis's grandsons, the Duke of Burgundy; he now gave his
younger daughter, Mary Louise, to Burgundy's brother, the new
King of Spain (September 11th, 1701), and took the field as
French commander-in-chief. He was opposed by his own cousin,
Prince Eugene, at the head of the Imperial armies. The war in
Lombardy was carried on with some remissness, partly owing to
the natural repugnance or irresolution of the Duke of Savoy,
partly to the suspicion with which, on that very account, he
was looked upon by Catinat and Vaudemont, the French and
Spanish commanders under him. The King, in an evil hour,
removed his able marshal, Catinat, and substituted for him
Villeroi, a carpet knight and court warrior, who committed one
fault after another, allowed himself to be beaten by Eugene at
Chiari (September 1st), and to be surprised and taken prisoner
at Cremona (1702, January 21st), to the infinite relief of his
troops. Vendôme restored the fortunes of the French, and a
very brilliant but undecisive action was fought at Luzzara
(August 15th), after which Prince Eugene was driven from the
neighbourhood of Mantua, and fell back towards the mountains
of Tyrol. With the success of the French their arrogance
increased, and with their arrogance the disgust and ill-will
of Victor Amadeus." The Duke withdrew from the camp and began
to listen to overtures from the Powers in the Grand Alliance.
"Report of the secret intercourse of the Duke with Austrian
agents reached Louis XIV., who sent immediate orders to
Vendôme to secure and disarm the Piedmontese soldiers (3,800
to 6,000 in number) who were fighting under French standards
at Mantua. This was achieved by treachery, at San Benedetto,
on the 29th of September, 1703. An attempt to seize the Duke
himself, whilst hunting near Turin, miscarried. Savoy
retaliated by the arrest of the French and Spanish
ambassadors, and war was declared (October 5th). The moment
was ill-chosen. Victor had barely 4,000 men under his orders.
The whole of Savoy was instantly overrun; and in Piedmont
Vercelli, Ivrea, Verrua, as well as Susa, Bard, and Pinerolo,
and even Chivasso, fell into the enemy's hands during the
campaigns of 1704 and 1705. In the ensuing year the tide of
invasion reached Nice and Villafranca; nothing was left to
Victor Amadeus but Cuneo and Turin, and the victorious French
armies appeared at last under the very walls of the capital
(March, 1706). The war had, however, been waged with different
results beyond the Alps, where the allies had crushed the
French at Blenheim (1704) and at Ramillies (1705). One of the
heroes of those great achievements, Prince Eugene, now
hastened to the rescue of his cousin. He met with a severe
check at Cassano (August 16th, 1705), and again at Calcinato
(April 19th, 1706); but his skilful antagonist, Vendôme, was
called away to Flanders, and Prince Eugene so out-manœuvred
his successors as to be able to join Victor at Turin. The
French had begun the siege of this place on the 13th of May,
1706. They had between 50,000 and 60,000 men, and 170 pieces
of artillery with them." When Prince Eugene, early in
September, reached the neighborhood of Turin, he concerted
with Victor Amadeus an attack on the investing army which
destroyed it completely. "Its relics withdrew in awful
disorder towards Pinerolo, pursued not only by the victorious
troops but also by the peasantry, who, besides attachment to
their princes, obeyed in this instance an instinct of revenge
against the French, who had barbarously used them. Out of
50,000 or 60,000 men who had sat down before Turin in March,
hardly 20,000 recrossed the Alps in September. Three of the
French generals lay dead on the field; … 6,000 prisoners
were marched through the streets of the liberated town, and 55
French banners graced the main altar of the cathedral. In the
following year, Victor and Eugene, greatly against their
inclination, were induced by the allies to undertake an
expedition against Toulon, which, like all previous invasions
of Provence, led to utter discomfiture, and the loss of 10,000
combatants (1707, July 1st to September 1st). An attack upon
Briançon, equally undertaken against the sound judgment of the
Duke of Savoy, in 1708, led to no better results; but Savoy
won back Exilles, Perosa, Fenestrelles, and, one by one, all
the redoubts with which during those wars the Alps were
bristling.
{1849}
The war slackened in Italy, and the fates of Europe were
decided in the Netherlands. … By the Peace of Utrecht [A. D.
1713] France renounced to Savoy all the invaded territories,
and, besides, the valleys of Oulx, Cesanne, Bardonneche, and
Castel Delfino, ancient possessions of Dauphiny, east of the
Alps, from the 12th century, whilst, for her own part, Savoy
gave up the western valley of Barcellonette; thus the limits
between the two nations (with the exception of Savoy and Nice)
were at last fixed on the mountain-crest, at 'the parting of
the waters.' By virtue of an agreement signed with Austria,
November 8th, 1703, the whole of Montferrat, as well as
Alessandria, Valenza, Lomellina, and Val Sesia, dependencies
of the duchy of Milan, and the imperial fiefs in the Langhe
(province of Alba), were ceded to Savoy."
A. Gallenga,
History of Piedmont,
volume 3, chapter 2.
ALSO IN:
Colonel G. B. Malleson,
Prince Eugene of Savoy,
chapters 5, and 7-9.
H. Martin,
History of France: Age of Louis XIV.,
volume 2, chapters 5-6.
W. Coxe,
History of the House of Austria,
chapters 68, 69, 73-75, 77 (volume 2-3).
See, also,
UTRECHT: A. D. 1712-1714.
ITALY: A. D. 1713-1714.
Milan, Naples and Sardinia ceded to the House of Austria and
Sicily to the Duke of Savoy.
See UTRECHT: A. D. 1712-1714.
ITALY: A. D. 1715-1735.
Ambitions of Elizabeth Farnese, the Spanish queen.
The Austro-Spanish conflict.
The Quadruple Alliance.
Acquisition of Naples by the Spanish Bourbons.
By the provisions of the Treaty of Utrecht, Philip V. of Spain
was left with no dominions in Italy, the Italian possessions
of the Spanish monarchy having been transferred to Austria.
Philip might have accepted this arrangement without demur. Not
so his wife—"Elizabeth Farnese, a lady of the Italian family
for whom the Duchy of Parma had been created by the Pope. The
crown of Spain was settled on her step-son. For her own child
the ambitious queen desired the honours of a crown. Cardinal
Alberoni, a reckless and ambitious ecclesiastic, was the
minister of the Spanish court. Under his advice and instigated
by the queen, Philip claimed the possessions in Italy, which
in the days of his grandfather had belonged to the Spanish
crown. When his title to that crown was admitted, he denied
the right of the other powers of Europe to alienate from it
its possessions. This was not all: in right of his queen he
claimed the duchies of Parma and of Tuscany. She determined to
recover for him all the Italian possessions of the Spanish
crown, and to add to them the duchies of Parma and Tuscany.
The Duke of Parma was old and childless. The extinction of the
reigning line of the Medici was near. Cosmo di Medici, the
reigning sovereign, was old. His only son, Jean Gaston, was
not likely to leave heirs. To Parma Elizabeth advanced her
claims as heiress of the family of Farnese; to Tuscany she
asserted a more questionable title in right of a descent from
the family of Medici. These duchies she demanded for her son,
Don Carlos, in whose behalf she was ready to waive her own
claims. The success of these demands would have given to the
Spanish monarchy even greater power than it had before
enjoyed. To Naples, Sicily, and Milan, would have been added
the territories of Parma and Tuscany. All Europe denounced the
ambitious projects of Alberoni as entirely inconsistent with
that balance of power which it had then become a political
superstition to uphold. Philip's French relatives were
determined in opposition to his claims; and to resist them the
quadruple alliance was formed between Holland, England, France
and the emperor. The parties to this alliance offered to the
Spanish Bourbons that the emperor should settle on Don Carlos
the reversion to the duchies of Parma and Tuscany on their
lapsing to him by the failure of the reigning families without
heirs. These proposals were rejected, and it was not until the
Spanish court found the combination of four powerful monarchs
too strong for them, that they reluctantly acceded to the
terms of the Quadruple Alliance, and accepted for Don Carlos
the promised reversion of Parma and Tuscany. To induce the
emperor to accede to this arrangement the Duke of Savoy was
compelled to surrender to him his newly-acquired kingdom of
Sicily, receiving instead the island of Sardinia with its
kingly title. It is as kings of Sardinia that the princes of
Savoy have since been known in European history. The treaty of
the quadruple alliance was thus the second by which at this
period the European powers attempted to arrange the affairs of
Italy. This treaty left the house of Austria in possession of
Sicily and Naples. It was assented to by Spain in 1720.
European complications unconnected with Italy produced new
wars and a new treaty; and the treaty of Seville in 1724,
followed by one entered into at Vienna two years later,
confirmed Don Carlos in the duchy of Parma, of which, on the
death of the last of the Farnese in 1734, he entered into
possession. A dispute as to the election of a king of Poland
gave the Spanish court an opportunity of once more attempting
the resumption of the Neapolitan dominions. Don Carlos, the
second son of Philip and Elizabeth, was now just grown to
man's estate. His father placed in his hand the sword which he
himself had received from Louis XIV. Don Carlos was but
seventeen years old when he took possession of his sovereignty
of Parma. In the same year [1734] he was called from it to
invade the Sicilian dominions of Austria. He conquered in
succession the continental territories, and the island of
Sicily; and on the 15th of June, 1734, he was proclaimed as
King of the Two Sicilies. The war of the Polish Succession was
ended in the following year by a peace, the preliminaries of
which were signed at Vienna. In this treaty an entirely new
arrangement of Italian affairs was introduced. The rights of
Don Carlos to the kingdoms of Naples and Sicily were
recognised. Parma was surrendered to the emperor; and, lastly,
the duchy of Tuscany was disposed of to a new claimant
[Francis of Lorraine] for the honours of an Italian prince."
I. Butt,
History of Italy,
volume 1, chapter 5.
ALSO IN:
E. Armstrong,
Elisabeth Farnese,
chapters 2-10.
P. Colletta,
History of the Kingdom of Naples, 1734-1856,
book 1, chapter 1-2.
See, also,
SPAIN: A. D. 1713-1725;
and FRANCE: A. D. 1733-1735.
ITALY: A. D. 1719.
The Emperor and the Duke of Savoy exchange Sardinia for
Sicily.
See SPAIN: A. D. 1713-1725.
ITALY: A. D. 1733-1735.
Franco-Austrian War.
Invasion of the Milanese by the French.
Naples and Sicily occupied by the Spaniards and erected into a
kingdom for Don Carlos.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1733-1735.
{1850}
ITALY: A. D. 1741-1743.
The War of the Austrian Succession:
Ambitious undertakings of Spain.
"The struggle between England and Spain had altogether merged
in the great European war, and the chief efforts of the
Spaniards were directed against the Austrian dominions in
Italy.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1739-1741.
The kingdom of Naples, which had passed under Austrian rule
during the war of the [Spanish] Succession, had, as we have
seen, been restored to the Spanish line in the war which ended
in 1740, and Don Carlos, who ruled it, was altogether
subservient to Spanish policy. The Duke of Lorraine, the
husband of Maria Theresa, was sovereign of Tuscany; and the
Austrian possessions consisted of the Duchy of Milan, and the
provinces of Mantua and Placentia. They were garrisoned at the
opening of the war by only 15,000 men, and their most
dangerous enemy was the King of Sardinia, who had gradually
extended his dominions into Lombardy, and whose army was,
probably, the largest and most efficient in Italy. 'The
Milanese,' his father is reported to have said, 'is like an
artichoke, to be eaten leaf by leaf,' and the skill and
perseverance with which for many generations the House of
Savoy pursued that policy, have in our own day had their
reward. Spanish troops had landed at Naples as early as
November 1741. The King of Sardinia, the Prince of Modena, and
the Republic of Genoa were on the same side. Venice was
completely neutral, Tuscany was compelled to declare herself
so, and a French army was soon to cross the Alps. The King of
Sardinia, however, at this critical moment, was alarmed by the
ambitious projects openly avowed by the Spaniards, and he was
induced by English influence to change sides. He obtained the
promise of certain territorial concessions from Austria, and
of an annual subsidy of £200,000 from England; and on these
conditions he suddenly marched with an army of 30,000 men to
the support of the Austrians. An the plans of the confederates
were disconcerted by this defection. The Spaniards went into
winter quarters near Bologna in October, fought an
unsuccessful battle at Campo Santo in the following February
[1743], and then retired to Rimini, leaving Lombardy in
complete tranquillity. The British fleet in the Mediterranean
had been largely strengthened by Carteret, and it did good
service to the cause. It burnt a Spanish squadron in the
French port of St. Tropez, compelled the King of Naples, by
the threat of bombardment, to withdraw his troops from the
Spanish army, and sign an engagement of neutrality, destroyed
large provisions of corn collected by the Genoese for the
Spanish army, and cut off that army from all communications by
sea."
W. E. H. Lecky,
History of England, 18th Century,
chapter 3 (volume 1).
ALSO IN:
W. Coxe,
History of the House of Austria,
chapter 102 (volume 3).
ITALY: A. D. 1743.
The War of the Austrian Succession: Treaty of Worms.
"By a treaty between Great Britain, the Queen of Hungary, and
the King of Sardinia, signed at Worms September 23rd, 1743,
Charles Emanuel renounced his pretensions to Milan; the Queen
of Hungary ceding to him the Vigevanesco, that part of the
duchy of Pavia between the Po and the Tessino, the town and
part of the duchy of Piacenza, and a portion of the district
of Anghiera. Also whatever rights she might have to the
marquisate of Finale hoping that the Republic of Genoa would
facilitate this agreement, in order that the King of Sardinia
might have a communication with the sea. The Queen of Hungary
promised to increase her army in Italy to 30,000 men as soon
as the affairs of Germany would permit; while the King of
Great Britain engaged to keep a strong fleet in the
Mediterranean, and to pay Charles Emanuel annually £200,000,
so long as the war lasted, he keeping in the field an army of
45,000 men."
T. H. Dyer,
History of Modern Europe,
book 6, chapter 4 (volume 3).
ITALY: A. D. 1743.
The Bourbon Family Compact (France and Spain) for establishing
Spanish claims.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1743 (OCTOBER).
ITALY: A. D. 1744.
The War of the Austrian Succession:
Indecisive campaigns.
"In Italy, the discordant views and mutual jealousies of Maria
Theresa and the king of Sardinia prevented the good effects
which might have been derived from their recent union. The
king was anxious to secure his own dominions on the side of
France, and to conquer the marquisate of Finale; while Maria
Theresa was desirous to direct her principal force against
Naples, and recover possession of the two Sicilies. Hence,
instead of co-operating for one great object, their forces
were divided; and, after an arduous and active campaign, the
Austrians were nearly in the same situation as at the
commencement of the year. Prince Lobcowitz being reinforced,
compelled the Spaniards to retreat successively from Pesara
and Senegallia, attacked them at Loretto and Reconati, and
drove them beyond the Fronto, the boundary of the kingdom of
Naples. Alarmed by the advance of the Austrians, the king of
Naples broke his neutrality, quitted his capital at the head
of 15,000 men, and hastened to join the Spaniards. But Prince
Lobcowitz … turned towards Rome, with the hope of
penetrating into Naples on that side; and, in the commencement
of June, reached the neighbourhood of Albano. His views were
anticipated by the king of Naples, who, dividing the Spanish
and Neapolitan troops into three columns, which were led by
himself, the duke of Modena, and the count de Gages, passed
through Anagm, Valmonte, and Monte Tortino, and reunited his
forces at Veletri, in the Campagna di Roma. In this situation,
the two hostile armies, separated only by a deep valley,
harassed each other with continual skirmishes. At length
prince Lobcowitz, in imitation of prince Eugene at Cremona,
formed the project of surprising the head-quarters of the king
of Naples. In the night of August 10th, a corps of Austrians,
led by count Brown, penetrated into the town of Veletri,
killed all who resisted, and would have surprised the king and
the duke of Modena in their beds, had they not been alarmed by
the French ambassador, and escaped to the camp. The Austrian
troops, giving way to pillage, were vigorously attacked by a
corps of Spaniards and Neapolitans, despatched from the camp,
and driven from the town with great slaughter, and the capture
of the second in command, the marquis de Novati. In this
contest, however, the Spanish army lost no less than 3,000
men. This daring exploit was the last offensive attempt of the
Austrian forces. Prince Lobcowitz perceiving his troops
rapidly decrease by the effects of the climate, and the
unwholesome air of the Pontine marshes, began his retreat in
the beginning of November, and though followed by an army
superior in number, returned without loss to Rimini, Pesaro,
Cesano, and Immola; while the combined Spaniards and
Neapolitans took up their quarters between Viterbo and Civita
Vecchia.
{1851}
In consequence of the expedition against Naples, the king of
Sardinia was left with 30,000 men, many of them new levies,
and 6,000 Austrians, to oppose the combined army of French and
Spaniards, who advanced on the side of Nice. After occupying
that place, the united army forced the intrenched camp of the
Sardinians, though defended by the king himself, made
themselves masters of Montalbano and Villafranca, and prepared
to penetrate into Piedmont along the sea coast. The Genoese,
irritated by the transfer of Finale, were inclined to
facilitate their operations; but were intimidated by the
presence of an English squadron which threatened to bombard
their capital. The prince of Conti, who commanded under the
infant Don Philip, did not, however, relinquish the invasion
of Piedmont, but formed the spirited project of leading his
army over the passes of the Alps, although almost every rock
was a fortress, and the obstacles of nature were assisted by
all the resources of art. He led his army, with a large train
of artillery, and numerous squadrons of cavalry, over
precipices and along beds of torrents, carried the fort of
Chateau Dauphin, forced the celebrated Barricades which were
deemed impregnable, descended the valley of the Stura, took
Demont after a slight resistance, and laid siege to Coni. The
king of Sardinia, having in vain attempted to stop the
progress of this torrent which burst the barriers of his
country, indignantly retired to Saluzzo, to cover his capital.
Being reinforced by 6,000 Austrians, he attempted to relieve
Coni, but was repulsed after a severe engagement, though he
succeeded in throwing succours into the town. This victory,
however, did not produce any permanent advantage to the
confederate forces; Coni continuing to hold out, the approach
of winter and the losses they had sustained, amounting to
10,000 men, compelled them to raise the siege and repass the
Alps, which they did not effect without extreme difficulty."
W. Coxe,
History of the House of Austria,
chapter 105 (volume 3).
ALSO IN:
W. Russell,
History of Modern Europe,
part 2, chapter 28.
ITALY: A. D. 1745.
The War of he Austrian Succession:
Successes of the Spaniards, French and Genoese.
"The Italian campaign of 1745, in boldness of design and
rapidity of execution, scarcely finds a parallel in military
history, and was most unpropitious to the Queen of Hungary and
King of Sardinia. The experience of preceding years had taught
the Bourbon Courts that all attempts to carry their arms
across the Alps would be fruitless, unless they could secure a
stable footing in the dominions of some Italian state on the
other side, to counteract the power of their adversary, who
had the entire command of the passes between Germany and
Italy, by means of which reinforcements could be continually
drafted to the scene of action. Accordingly they availed
themselves of the jealousy and alarm excited at Genoa, by the
transfer of Finale to the King of Sardinia, to engage that
republic on their side. The plan was to unite the two armies
which had wintered on the distant frontiers of Naples and
Provence, in the vicinity of Genoa, where they were to be
joined by 10,000 auxiliaries on the part of the republic.
Charles Emanuel was sensible of the terrible consequences to
himself, should the Genoese declare openly for the house of
Bourbon, and sent General Pallavicini, a man of address and
abilities, to renounce his pretensions to Finale, while
Admiral Rowley, with a British fleet, hovered on their coasts.
In spite of all this, nevertheless, the treaty of Aranjuez was
concluded between France, Spain, and Genoa. After surmounting
amazing difficulties, and making the most arduous and
astonishing marches, the army commanded by Don Philip, who was
accompanied by the French General Maillebois, and that
commanded by Count de Gages, effected their junction on the
14th of June, near Genoa, when their united forces, now under
Don Philip, amounted to 78,000 men. All that the King of
Sardinia could do under these circumstances, was to make the
best dispositions to defend the Milanese, the Parmesan, and
the Plaisantine; but the whole disposable force under the King
and Count Schulenburg, the successor of Lobkowitz, did not
amount to above 45,000 men. Count Gages with 30,000 men was to
be opposed to Schulenburg, and took possession of Serravalle,
on the Scrivia; then advancing towards Alessandria he obliged
the Austrians to retire under the cannon of Tortona. Don
Philip made himself master of Acqui, so that the King of
Sardinia, with the Austrian General, Count Schulenburg, had to
retreat behind the Tanaro. On the 24th of July the strong
citadel of Tortona was taken by the Spaniards, which opened
the way to the occupation of Parma and Placentia. The combined
army of French, Spanish, Neapolitans, and Genoese being now
masters of an extensive tract with all the principal towns
south of the Po, they readily effected a passage near the
confluence of the Ticino, and with a detachment surprised
Pavia. The Austrians, fearful for the Milanese, separated
accordingly from the Sardinian troops. The Bourbon force
seeing this, suddenly reunited, gained the Tanaro by a rapid
movement on the night of the 27th of September, forded it in
three columns, although the water reached to the very necks of
the soldiers, fell upon the unsuspecting and unprepared
Sardinians, broke their cavalry in the first charge, and drove
the enemy in dismay and confusion to Valenza. Charles Emanuel
fled to Casale, where he reassembled his broken army, in order
to save it from utter ruin. The confederate armies still
advanced, drove the King back and took Trino and Verua, which
last place lay but twenty miles from his capital: fearful now
that this might be bombarded he hastened thither, withdrew his
forces under its cannon, and ordered the pavement of the city
to be taken up. Maillebois, on his side, penetrated into the
Milanese, and by the month of October the territories of the
house of Austria in Italy were wholly subdued. The whole of
Lombardy being thus open, Don Philip made a triumphant entry
into Milan on the 20th of December, fondly hoping that he had
secured for himself an Italian kingdom, as his brother, Don
Carlos, had done at Naples. The Austrian garrison, however,
still maintained the citadel of Milan and the fortress of
Mantua."
Sir E. Cust,
Annals of the Wars of the 18th Century,
volume 2, pages 75-76.
ALSO IN:
A. Gallenga,
History of Piedmont,
volume 3, chapter 4.
{1852}
ITALY: A. D. 1746-1747.
The War of the Austrian Succession: A turn of fortune.
The Spaniards and French abandon North Italy.
The Austrians in Genoa, and their expulsion from the city.
"Of all the Austrian possessions in Lombardy, little remained
except the fortress of Mantua and the citadel of Milan; while
the citadels of Asti and Alessandria, the keys of Piedmont,
were expected to fall before the commencement of the ensuing
campaign. On the return of the season for action, the struggle
for the mastery of Italy was renewed, and the queen of Spain
already saw in imagination the crown of Lombardy gracing the
brow of her second son. On the east, the French and Spanish
armies had extended themselves as far as Reggio, Placentia,
and Guastalla; on the north they were masters of the whole
country between the Adda and Tesino; they blockaded the
passages by the lake of Como and the Lago Maggiore, and were
preparing to reduce the citadel of Milan; on the west their
posts extended as far as Casale and Asti, though of the last
the citadel was still held by the Sardinians. The main body of
the French secured the communication with Genoa and the
country south of the Po; a strong body at Reggio, Parma, and
Placentia, covered their conquests on the east; and the
Spaniards commanded the district between the Po and the
mountains of Tyrol. The Sardinians were collected into the
neighbourhood of Trino; while the Austrians fell back into the
Novarrese to effect a junction with the reinforcements which
were daily expected from Germany. In this situation, a sudden
revolution took place in the fortune of the war. The empress
queen [Maria Theresa], by the conclusion of a peace with
Prussia, was at liberty to reinforce her army in Italy, and
before the end of February 30,000 men had already descended
from the Trentine Alps, and spread themselves as far as the
Po." This change of situation caused the French court to make
overtures to the king of Sardinia, which gave great offense to
Spain. The wily Sardinian gained time by his negotiations with

the French, until he found an opportunity, by suddenly ending
the armistice, to capture the French garrison in Asti, to
relieve the citadel of Alessandria and to lay siege to
Valenza. "These disasters compelled Maillebois [the French
general] to abandon his distant posts and concentrate his
forces between Novi and Voghera, in order to maintain the
communication with Genoa. Nor were the Spaniards beyond the Po
in a less critical situation. A column of 10,000 Austrians
under Berenclau having captured Codogno, and advanced to Lodi,
the Spanish general was compelled to withdraw his troops from
the passes towards the lakes, to send his artillery to Pavia
and draw towards the Po. The infant had scarcely quitted Milan
before a party of Austrian hussars entered the place."
Meantime, the Spanish general Castelar, blockaded in Parma by
the Austrians, broke through their lines and gained the
eastern Riviera, with the loss of half his force. In June, the
Spaniards and French, concentrated at Placentia, made a
powerful attack on the Austrians, to arrest their progress,
but were repulsed with heavy loss. The Sardinians soon
afterwards formed a junction with the Austrians, which
compelled the Spaniards and French to evacuate Placentia and
retreat to Genoa, abandoning stores and artillery and losing
many men. In the midst of these disasters, the Spanish king,
Philip V., died, and his widowed queen, Elizabeth Farnese
—the "Spanish termagant," Carlyle calls her—who had been
the moving spirit of the struggle for Italy, lost the reins of
government. His son (by his first wife, Maria Louisa of Savoy)
who succeeded him, had no ambitions and no passions to
interest him in the war, and resolved to escape from it. The
marquis Las Minas, whom he sent to take command of the
retreating army, speedily announced his intention to abandon
Italy. "Thus deserted, the situation of the French and Genoese
became desperate. … Maillebois, after exhorting the Genoese
to defend their territory to the last extremity, was obliged
to follow the example of Las Minas in withdrawing towards
Provence. Abandoned to their fate, the Genoese could not
withstand the combined attacks of the Austro-Sardinians,
assisted by the British fleet. The city surrendered almost at
discretion; the garrison were made prisoners of war; the
stores, arms and artillery were to be delivered; the doge and
six senators to repair to Vienna and implore forgiveness. The
marquis of Botta, who had replaced Lichtenstein in the
command, took possession of the place with 15,000 men, while
the king of Sardinia occupied Finale and reduced Savona. In
consequence of this success the Austrian court meditated the
re-conquest of Naples and Sicily, which had been drained of
troops to support the war in Lombardy." But this project was
overruled by the British government, and the allied army
crossed the Var, to carry the war into the southeastern
provinces of France. "Their progress was, however, instantly
arrested by an insurrection at Genoa, occasioned by the
exactions and oppressions of the Austrian commanders. The
garrison was expelled by the tumultuary efforts of the
populace; and the army, to obviate the mischiefs of this
unexpected reverse, hastily measured back its steps. Instead
of completing the disasters of the Bourbon troops, the
Austro-Sardinians employed the whole winter in the investment
of Genoa." The siege was protracted but unsuccessful, and the
allies were forced to abandon it the following summer, on the
approach of the Bourbon forces, which resumed the offensive
under Marshal Belleisle. After delivering Genoa, the latter
sent a detachment of his army into Piedmont, where it met with
disaster. No further operations of importance were undertaken
before the conclusion of the peace, which was then being
negotiated at Aix-la-Chapelle.
W. Coxe,
Memoirs of the Bourbon Kings of Spain,
chapters 46-48 (volumes 3-4).
ALSO IN:
J. T. Bent,
Genoa,
chapter 16.
ITALY: A. D. 1749-1792.
Peace in the Peninsula.
The Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle "left nothing to Austria in
Italy except the duchies of Milan and Mantua. Although the
grand-duchy of Tuscany was settled on the family of
Hapsburg-Lorraine, every precaution was taken to prevent that
province from being united with the German possessions of
their house. The arrangements of the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle
continued up to the period of the French revolution
undisturbed. Those arrangements, although the result of a
compromise of the interests and ambitions of rival statesmen,
were not, considering the previous state of Italy,
unfavourable to the cause of Italian independence.
{1853}
Piedmont, already recognised as the protector of Italian
nationality, gained not only in rank, but in substantial
territory, by the acquisition of the island of Sardinia, still
more by that of the High Novarese, and by extending her
frontier to the Ticino. Naples and Sicily were released from
the tyranny of viceroys, and placed under a resident king,
with a stipulation to secure their future independence, that
they should never be united to the Spanish crown. … In the
45 [?] years which elapsed between the treaty of
Aix-la-Chapelle and the French revolution, Italy enjoyed a
perfect and uninterrupted peace. In some, at least, of its
principalities, its progress in prosperity and in legislation
was rapid. Naples and Sicily, under the government of Charles
III., and subsequently under the regency of his minister,
Tanucci, were ruled with energy and prudence. Tuscany
prospered under the sway of the princes of Lorraine, Milan and
Mantua were mildly governed by the Austrian court; and
Lombardy rose from the misery to which the exactions of
Spanish viceroys had reduced even the great resources of that
rich and fertile province. In the other Italian States at
least no change had taken place for the worse. Industry
everywhere flourished under the presence of the most essential
of all blessings,—peace."
I. Butt,
History of Italy,
volume 1, chapter 5.
ITALY: A. D. 1792-1793.
Annexation of Savoy and Nice to the French Republic.
Sardinia and the Two Sicilies in the coalition against France.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1792 (SEPTEMBER-DECEMBER);
and 1793 (MARCH-SEPTEMBER).
ITALY: A. D. 1794-1795.
Passes of the Maritime Alps secured by the French.
The coalition abandoned by the Grand Duke of Tuscany.
French successes at Loano.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1794-1795 (OCTOBER-MAY);
and 1795 (JUNE-DECEMBER).
ITALY: A. D. 1796-1797.
French invasion.
Bonaparte's first campaigns.
His victories and his pillage.
Expulsion of the Austrians.
French treaties with Genoa and Naples.
The Cispadane and Cisalpine Republics.
Surrender of Papal territories.
Peace preliminaries of Leoben.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1796 (APRIL-OCTOBER), and (OCTOBER);
and 1796-1797 (OCTOBER-APRIL).
ITALY: A. D. 1797 (MAY-OCTOBER).
Creation of the Ligurian and Cisalpine Republics.
The Peace of Campo-Formio.
Lombardy relinquished by Austria.
Venice and Venetian territory made over to her.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1797 (MAY-OCTOBER).
ITALY: A. D. 1797-1798 (December-May).
French occupation of Rome.
Formation of the Roman Republic.
Removal of the Pope.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1797-1798 (DECEMBER-MAY).
ITALY: A. D. 1798-1799.
Overthrow of the Neapolitan Kingdom.
Creation of the Parthenopeian Republic.
Relinquishment of Piedmont by the king of Sardinia.
French reverses.
See FRANCE: A. D.1798-1799 (AUGUST-APRIL).
ITALY: A. D. 1799 (APRIL-AUGUST).
Successful Austro-Russian campaign.
Suwarrow's victories.
French evacuation of Lombardy, Piedmont and Naples.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1799 (APRIL-SEPTEMBER).
ITALY: A. D. 1799 (AUGUST-DECEMBER).
Austrian successes.
Expulsion of the French.
Fall of the Parthenopeian and Roman Republics.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1799 (AUGUST-DECEMBER).
ITALY: A. D. 1800.
Bonaparte's Marengo campaign.
Northern Italy recovered by the French.
Siege and capture of Genoa by the Austrians.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1800-1801 (MAY-FEBRUARY).
ITALY: A. D. 1800-1801 (JUNE-FEBRUARY).
The king of Naples spared by Napoleon.
Restoration of Papal authority at Rome.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1800-1801 (JUNE-FEBRUARY).
ITALY: A. D. 1802.
Name of the Cisalpine Republic changed to Italian Republic.
Bonaparte president.
Annexation of part of Piedmont, with Parma and Elba, to
France.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1801-1803,
and 1802 (AUGUST-SEPTEMBER).
ITALY: A. D. 1805.
Transformation of the Italian Republic into the Kingdom of
Italy.
Election and coronation of Napoleon.
Annexation of Genoa to France.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1804-1805.
ITALY: A. D. 1805.
Cession of Venetian territory by Austria to the Kingdom of
Italy.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1805-1806.
ITALY: A. D. 1805-1806.
Napoleon's dethronement of the dynasty of Naples.
Joseph Bonaparte made king of the Two Sicilies.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1805-1806 (DECEMBER-SEPTEMBER).
ITALY: A. D. 1807-1808.
Napoleon's visit.
His arbitrary changes in the constitution.
His public works.
His despotism.
His annexation of Tuscany to France, and seizure of the Papal
States.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1807-1808 (NOVEMBER-FEBRUARY).
ITALY: A. D. 1808 (JULY).
The crown of Naples resigned by Joseph Bonaparte (now king of
Spain) and conferred on Joachim Murat.
See SPAIN: A. D. 1808 (MAY-SEPTEMBER).
ITALY: (Southern): A. D. 1808-1809.
Beginning of the reign of Murat at Naples.
Expulsion of the English from Capri.
Insolence of Murat's soldiery.
Popular discontent and hatred.
Rise of the Carbonari.
Civil war in Calabria.
"Joachim Murat, the new King of Naples, announced his
accession to the nation [July, 1808]. 'The august Napoleon,'
he said, 'had given him the kingdom of the two Sicilies.
Gratitude to the donor, and a desire to benefit his subjects,
would divide his heart.' … The commencement of Murat's reign
was felicitous; the English, however, occupied the island of
Capri, which, being placed at the opening of the gulf, is the
key of the bay of Naples. Their presence stimulated all who
were averse to the new government, intimidated its adherents,
and impeded the freedom of navigation, to the manifest injury
of commerce; besides, it was considered disgraceful, that one
of the Napoleonides should suffer an enemy so near, and that
enemy the English, who were at once so hated and so despised.
The indolence of Joseph had patiently suffered the disgrace;
but Joachim, a spirited soldier, was indignant at it, and he
thought it necessary to commence his reign by some important
enterprise. He armed therefore against Capri: Sir Hudson Lowe
was there in garrison with two regiments collected from all
the nations of Europe, and which were called the Royal
Corsican and the Royal Maltese. … A body of French and
Neapolitans were sent from Naples and Salerno, under the
command of General Lamarque, to reduce the island; and they
effected a landing, by means of ladders hung to the rocks by
iron hooks, and thus possessed themselves of Anacarpi, though
not without great difficulty, as the English resolutely
defended themselves. …
{1854}
The siege proceeded but slowly—succours of men and
ammunition reached the besieged from Sicily; but fortune
favoured the enemy, as an adverse wind drove the English out
to sea. The King, who superintended the operations from the
shore of Massa, having waited at the point of Campanella,
seizing the propitious moment, sent fresh squadrons in aid of
Lamarque, and the English, being already broken, and the forts
dismantled, now yielded to the conqueror. The Neapolitans were
highly gratified by the acquisition of Capri, and from that
event augured well of the new government. The kingdom of
Naples contained three classes of people—barons, republicans,
and populace. The barons willingly joined the party of the new
king, because they were pleased by the honours granted to
them, and they were not without hopes of recovering their
ancient privileges, or at least of acquiring new ones. … The
republicans were, on the contrary, inimical to Joachim, not
because he was a king, for they easily accommodated themselves
to royalty; but because his conduct in Tuscany, where he had
driven them forth or bound them in chains like malefactors,
had rendered him personally obnoxious to them. They were
moreover disgusted by his incredible vanity, which led him to
court and caress with the most zealous adulation every bearer
of a feudal title. … The populace, who cared no more for
Joachim than they had done for Joseph, would easily have
contented themselves with the new government, if it had
protected them from the oppressions of the barons, and had
procured for them quiet and abundance. But Joachim, wholly
intent on courting the nobles, neglected the people, who,
oppressed by the barons and soldiery, became alienated from
him. … The spirit of discontent was further increased by his
introduction of the conscription laws of France. … Joachim,
a soldier himself, permitted every thing to his soldiery; and
an insupportable military license was the result. Hence, also,
they became the sole support of his power, and it took no root
in the affections of the people. The insolence of the troops
continually augmented not only every desire, but every caprice
of the head of a regiment, nay, even of the inferior officers,
was to be complied with, as if they were the laws of the
realm; and whosoever even lamented his subjection to their
will was ill-treated and incurred some risk of being declared
an enemy to the King. … The discontents produced by the
enormities committed by the troops of Murat gave hopes to the
court of Palermo that its fortunes might be re-established in
the kingdom beyond the Faro. Meanwhile, the civil war raged in
Calabria; nor were the Abruzzi tranquil. In these disturbances
there were various factions in arms, and various objects were
pursued: some of those who fought against Joachim, and had
fought against Joseph, were adherents of Ferdinand,—others
were the partisans of a republican constitution. … The sect
of the Carbonari arose at this period."
C. Botta,
Italy during the Consulate and Empire of Napoleon,
chapter 5.
"The most famous, the most widely disseminated, and the most
powerful of all the secret societies which sprang up in Italy
was that of the Carbonari, or Charcoal-makers. … The
Carbonari first began to attract attention in the Kingdom of
Naples about the year 1808. A Genoese named Maghella, who
burned with hatred of the French, is said to have initiated
several Neapolitans into a secret order whose purpose it was
to goad their countrymen into rebellion. They quitted Naples,
where Murat's vigilant policy kept too strict a watch on
conspirators, and retired to the Abruzzi, where in order to
disarm suspicion they pretended to be engaged in
charcoal-burning. As their numbers increased, agents were sent
to establish lodges in the principal towns. The Bourbon king,
shut up in Sicily, soon heard of them, and as he had not
hesitated at letting loose with English aid galley-prisoners,
or at encouraging brigands, to harass Murat, so he eagerly
connived with these conspirators in the hope of recovering his
throne. Murat, having striven for several years to suppress
the Carbonari, at last, when he found his power slipping from
him, reversed his policy towards them, and strove to
conciliate them. But it was too late: neither he nor they
could prevent the restoration of the Bourbons under the
protection of Austria. The sectaries who had hitherto
foolishly expected that, if the French could be expelled,
Ferdinand would grant them a Liberal government, were soon
cured of their delusion, and they now plotted against him as
sedulously as they had plotted against his predecessor. Their
membership increased to myriads; their lodges, starting up in
every village in the Kingdom of Naples, had relations with
branch-societies in all parts of the Peninsula: to the anxious
ears of European despots the name Carbonaro soon meant all
that was lawless and terrible; it meant anarchy, chaos,
assassination. But when we read the catechism, or confession
of faith, of the Carbonari we are surprised by the
reasonableness of their aims and tenets. The duties of the
individual Carbonaro were, 'to render to the Almighty the
worship due to Him; to serve the fatherland with zeal; to
reverence religion and laws; to fulfil the obligations of
nature and friendship; to be faithful to promises; to observe
silence, discretion, and charity; to cause harmony and good
morals to prevail; to conquer the passions and submit the
will; and to abhor the seven deadly sins.' The scope of the
Society was to disseminate instruction; to unite the different
classes of society under the bond of love; to impress a
national character on the people, and to interest them in the
preservation and defense of the fatherland and of religion; to
destroy by moral culture the source of crimes due to the
general depravity of mankind; to protect the weak and to raise
up the unfortunate. … It went still farther and asserted the
un-Catholic doctrine of liberty of conscience: 'to every
Carbonaro,' so reads one of its articles, 'belongs the natural
and unalterable right to worship the Almighty according to his
own intuition and understanding.' We must not be misled,
however, by these enlightened professions, into a wrong notion
of the real purposes of Carbonarism. Politics, in spite of a
rule forbidding political discussion, were the main business,
and ethics but the incidental concern of the conspirators.
They organized their Order under republican forms as if to
prefigure the ideal towards which they aspired. The Republic
was subdivided into provinces, each of which was controlled by
a grand lodge, that of Salerno being the 'parent.' There were
also four 'Tribes,' each having a council and holding an
annual diet.
{1855}
Each tribe had a Senate, which advised a House of
Representatives, and this framed the laws which a magistracy
executed. There were courts of the first instance, of appeal,
and of cessation, and no Carbonaro might bring suit in the
civil courts against a fellow member, unless he had first
failed to get redress in one of these. … The Carbonari
borrowed some of their rites from the Freemasons, with whom
indeed they were commonly reported to be in such close
relations that Freemasons who joined the 'Carbonic Republic'
were spared the formality of initiation; other parts of their
ceremonial they copied from the New Testament, with such
additions as the special objects of the order called for."
W. R. Thayer,
The Dawn of Italian Independence,
book 2, chapter 4 (volume 1).
ALSO IN:
P. Colletta,
History of the Kingdom of Naples,
book 7 (volume 2).
T. Frost,
Secret Societies of the European Revolution,
volume 1, chapter 5.
General Sir H. Bunbury,
The Great War with France,
page 343, and after.
The Chevalier O'Clery,
History of the Italian Revolution
chapter 3.
ITALY: A. D. 1809 (APRIL-MAY).
Renewed war of Austria with France.
Austrian advance and retreat.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1809 (JANUARY-JUNE).
ITALY: A. D. 1809 (MAY-JULY).
Annexation of the Papal States to the French Empire.
Removal of the Pope to Savona.
Rome declared to be a free and imperial city.
See PAPACY: A. D. 1808-1814.
ITALY: A. D. 1812.
Removal of the captive Pope to Fontainebleau.
See PAPACY: A. D. 1808-1814.
ITALY: A. D. 1812.
Participation in Napoleon's disastrous Russian campaign.
See RUSSIA: A. D. 1812 (JUNE-SEPTEMBER), and after.
ITALY: A. D. 1813.
Participation in the war in Germany.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1813 (APRIL-MAY).
ITALY: A. D. 1814.
Desertion of Napoleon by Murat.
His treaty with the Allies.
Expulsion of the French from the Peninsula.
Murat, king of Naples, "foreseeing the downfall of the
Emperor, had attempted to procure from Napoleon, as the price
of his fidelity, the union under his own sceptre of all Italy
south of the Po; but, failing in this, he prepared to abandon
the cause of his benefactor. On the 11th January, 1814, he
concluded a treaty with the Allies, by which he was guaranteed
possession of Naples; and forthwith advancing on Rome with
20,000 men, occupied the second city in his brother-in-law's
empire (January 19); having previously published a flaming
proclamation, in which the perfidy and violence of the
imperial government were denounced in terms which came
strangely from a chief of the Revolution. … At the end of
December, 1813, Eugene had withdrawn to the Adige with 36,000
men, before Bellegarde and 50,000 Austrians; and he was
already taking measures for a further retreat, when the
proclamation of Murat, and his hostile advance, rendered such
a movement inevitable. He had accordingly fallen back to the
Mincio, when, finding himself threatened on the flank by a
British expedition from Sicily under Lord William Bentinck, he
determined on again advancing against Bellegarde, so as to rid
himself of one enemy before he encountered another. The two
armies, however, thus mutually acting on the offensive, passed
each other, and an irregular action at last ensued on the
Mincio (February 8), in which the advantage was rather with
the French, who made 1,500 prisoners, and drove Bellegarde
shortly after over the Mincio, about 3,000 being killed and
wounded on each side. But, in other quarters, affairs were
going rapidly to wreck. Verona surrendered to the Austrians on
the 14th, and Ancona to Murat on the 16th; and the desertion
of the Italians, unequal to the fatigues of a winter campaign,
was so great that the Viceroy was compelled to fall back to
the Po. Fouché, meanwhile, as governor of Rome, had concluded
a convention (February 20) with the Neapolitan generals for
the evacuation of Pisa, Leghorn, Florence, and other garrisons
of the French empire in Italy. A proclamation, however, by the
hereditary prince of Sicily, who had accompanied Bentinck from
Sicily, gave Murat such umbrage that he separated his troops
from the British, and commenced operations, with little
success, against Eugene on the Po, in which the remainder of
March passed away. Bentinck, having at length received
reinforcements from Catalonia, moved forward with 12,000 men,
and occupied Spezia on the 29th of March, and, driving the
French (April 8) from their position at Sestri, forced his way
through the mountains, and appeared on the 16th in front of
Genoa. On the 17th the forts and positions before the city
were stormed; and the garrison, seeing preparations made for a
bombardment, capitulated on the 18th, on condition of being
allowed to march out with the honours of war. Murat had by
this time recommenced vigorous operations, and after driving
the French (April 13) from the Taro, had forced the passage of
the Stura; but the news of Napoleon's fall put an end to
hostilities. By a convention with the Austrians, Venice,
Palma-Nuova, and the other fortresses still held by the
French, were surrendered; the whole of Lombardy was occupied
by the Germans; and in the first week of May the French troops
finally repassed the Alps."
Epitome of Alison's History of Europe,
sections 775, and 807-808.
ITALY: A. D. 1814-1815.
Return of the Despots.
Restoration of Austrian tyranny in the North.
The Pope in Rome again.
"With little resistance, Northern Italy was taken from the
French. Had it been otherwise, had Murat and Beauharnais
joined their forces, they might have long held the Austrians
in check, perhaps even have made a descent on Vienna; and
although this might not have hindered the ultimate overthrow
of Napoleon, yet it must have compelled the Allies, at the day
of settlement, to respect the wishes of the Italians. But
disunited, and deluded into the belief that they were partners
in a war of liberation, the Italians woke up to find that they
had escaped from the talons of the French eagle, only to be
caught in the clutch of the two-headed monstrosity of Austria.
They were to be used, in the language of Joseph De Maistre,
like coins, wherewith the Allies paid their debts. This was
plain enough when the people of the just-destroyed Kingdom of
Italy prepared to choose a ruler for themselves: one party
favored Beauharnais, another wished an Austrian prince, a
third an Italian, but all agreed in demanding independence.
Austria quickly informed them that they were her subjects, and
that their affairs would be decided at Vienna. Thus, almost
without striking a blow, and without a suspicion of the lot
awaiting them, the Northern Italians fell back under the
domination of Austria. In the spring and early summer of 1814
the exiled princelings returned: Victor Emanuel I. from his
savage refuge in Sardinia to Turin; Ferdinand III. from
Würzburg to Florence; Pius VII. from his confinement at
Fontainebleau and Savona to Rome.
See PAPACY: A. D. 1808-1814;
{1856}
Francis IV. to Modena. Other aspirants anxiously waited for
the Congress of Vienna to bestow upon them the remaining
provinces. The Congress … dragged on into the spring of the
following year. … In Lombardy and Venetia, Metternich soon
organized a thoroughly Austrian administration. The government
of the two provinces was separate, that of Lombardy being
centred at Milan, that of Venetia at Venice; but over all was
placed an Austrian archduke as Viceroy. Each district had its
civil and military tribunals, but the men who composed these
being appointees of the viceroy or his deputies, their
subservience could usually be reckoned upon. The trials were
secret, a provision which, especially in political cases, made
convictions easy. … Feudal privileges, which had been
abolished by the French, could be recovered by doing homage to
the Emperor and by paying specific taxes. In some respects
there was an improvement in the general administration, but in
others the deterioration was manifest. … Art, science, and
literature were patronized, and they throve as potted plants
thrive under the care of a gardener who cuts off every new
shoot at a certain height. … We may liken the people of the
Austro-Italian provinces to those Florentine revelers who, at
the time of the plague, tried to drive away their terror by
telling each other the merry stories reported by Boccaccio.
The plague which penetrated every corner of Lombardy and
Venetia was the Austrian police. Stealthy, but sure, its
unseen presence was dreaded in palace and hovel, in church,
tribunal, and closet. … Every police-office was crammed with
records of the daily habits of each citizen, of his visitors,
his relatives, his casual conversations,—even his style of
dress and diet were set down. … Such was the Metternichian
system of police and espionage that counteracted every mild
law and every attempt to lessen the repugnance of the
Italians. They were not to be deceived by blandishments:
Lombardy was a prison, Venetia was a prison, and they were all
captives, although they seemed to move about unshackled to
their work or pleasure."
W. R. Thayer,
The Dawn of Italian Independence,
book 2, chapter 2 (volume 1).
See, also,
VIENNA, THE CONGRESS OF;
AUSTRIA: A. D. 1815-1846;
and HOLY ALLIANCE.
ITALY: (Southern): A. D. 1815.
Murat's attempt to head a national movement.
His failure, downfall and death.
Restoration of the Bourbons at Naples.
"Wild as was the attempt in which, after Napoleon's return
from Elba, the King of Naples lost his crown, we must yet
judge of it both by his own character and the circumstances in
which he was placed. … In the autumn of 1813 communications
took place at Milan between Murat and the leaders of the
secret societies which were then attempting to organise
Italian patriotism in arms. In 1814, when the restoration of
Austrian rule in Lombardy so cruelly disappointed the national
hopes, these communications were renewed. The King of Naples
was assured that he needed but to raise the standard of
Italian independence to rally round him thousands and tens of
thousands of volunteers. … These calculations … were
readily adopted by the rash and vain-glorious monarch to whom
they were presented. … His proud spirit chafed and fretted
under the consciousness that he had turned upon Napoleon, and
the mortification of finding himself deserted by those in
reliance upon whose faith this sacrifice had been made. The
events in France had taken him by surprise. In joining the
alliance against Napoleon he had not calculated on the
deposition of the emperor, still less had he dreamed of the
destruction of the empire. … He bitterly reproached his own
conduct for having lent himself to such results. … When his
mind was agitated with these mingled feelings, the
intelligence reached him that Napoleon had actually left Elba,
on that enterprise in which he staked everything upon
regaining the imperial throne of France. It came to him direct
from Napoleon. … He foresaw that the armies of the allied
powers would be engaged in a gigantic struggle with the
efforts which Napoleon would be sure to make. Under such
circumstances, he fancied Italy an easy conquest; once master
of this he became a power with whom, in the conflict of
nations, any of the contending parties could only be too happy
to treat. He determined to place himself at the head of
Italian nationality, and strike one daring blow for the
chieftainship of the nation. … His ministers, his friends,
the French generals, even his queen, Napoleon's sister,
dissuaded him from such a course. … But with an obstinacy by
which the vacillating appear sometimes to attempt to atone for
habitual indecision, he persevered in spite of all advice. …
He issued a proclamation and ordered his troops to cross the
Papal frontier. … The Pope appointed a regency and retired,
accompanied by most of the cardinals, to Florence. … On the
30th of March his [Murat's] troops attacked the Austrian
forces at Cesena. The Germans were driven, without offering
much resistance, from the town. On the evening of that day he
issued from Rimini his proclamation to the Italian people,
which was against Austria a declaration of war. … A
declaration of war on the part of Austria immediately
followed. … The whole of the Italian army of Austria was
ordered at once to march upon Naples; and a treaty was
concluded with Ferdinand, by which Austria engaged to use all
her endeavours to recover for him his Neapolitan dominions.
… The army which Murat led northward, instead of numbering
80,000 as he represented in his proclamation, certainly never
exceeded 34,000. … Nearly 60,000 Austrians defended the
banks of the Po. … On the 10th of April, the troops of
Murat, under the command of General Pepe, were driven back by
the Austrians, who now in their turn advanced. … A retreat
to the frontiers of Naples was unanimously resolved on. This
retreat was one that had all the disasters without any of the
redeeming glories of war. … At last, as they approached the
confines of the Neapolitan kingdom, an engagement which took
place between Macerata and Tolentino, on the 4th of May, ended
in a total and ignominious rout. … At Macerata most of the
troops broke up into a disorganised rabble, and with
difficulty Murat led to Capua a small remnant of an army, that
could hardly be said to be defeated, because they were worsted
without anything that deserves to be called a fight.
{1857}
From Capua, on the 12th of May, the king sent to Naples a
proclamation granting a free constitution. To conceal the fact
that this was wrung from him only in distress, he resorted to
the miserable subterfuge of ante-dating it from Rimini, on the
30th of March." On the evening of the 18th of May, Murat
entered Naples quietly on foot, and had his last interview
with his queen and children. A British squadron was already in
the harbor. The next night he slipped away to the island of
Ischia, and thence to Frejus, while Queen Caroline remained to
discharge the last duties of sovereignty. On the 20th Naples
was surrendered to the Austrians, and the ex-queen took refuge
on an English vessel to escape from a threatening mob of the
lazzaroni. She was conveyed to Trieste, where the Austrian
emperor had offered her an asylum. The restored Bourbon king,
Ferdinand, made his entry into the capital on the 17th of
June. Meantime, Murat, in France, had offered his services to
Napoleon and they had been declined. After Waterloo, he
escaped to Corsica, whence, in the following October, he made
a foolhardy attempt to recover his kingdom, landing with a few
followers at Pizzo, on the Neapolitan coast, expecting a
rising of the people to welcome his return. But the rising
that occurred was hostile instead of friendly. The party was
quickly overpowered, Murat taken prisoner and delivered to
Ferdinand's officers. He was summarily tried by court martial
and shot, October 13, 1815.
I. Butt,
History of Italy,
volume 2, chapters 10-11.
ALSO IN:
P. Colletta,
History of Naples,
book 7, chapter 5,
and book 8, chapter 1 (volume 2).
ITALY: A. D. 1820-1821.
Revolutionary insurrections in Naples and Sicily.
Perjury and duplicity of the king.
The revolt crushed by Austrian troops.
Abortive insurrection in Piedmont.
Its end at Novara.
Abdication of Victor Emmanuel I.
Accession of Charles Felix.
"In the last days of February, 1820, a revolution broke out in
Spain. The object of its leaders was to restore the
Constitution of 1812, which had been suppressed on the return
of the Bourbons to the throne. … The Revolution proved
successful, and for a short time the Spaniards obtained
possession of a democratic Constitution. Their success stirred
up the ardour of the Liberal party in the kingdom of the two
Sicilies, and before many weeks were over a revolutionary
movement occurred at Naples. The insurrection originated with
the army under the command of General Pepé, and it is worthy
of note that the movement was not directed against the
reigning dynasty, and was not, even nominally, associated with
any demand for national unity. All the insurgents asked for
was the establishment of a Constitution similar to that then
existing in Spain. After a very brief and feeble resistance,
the King yielded to the demands of the military conspirators,
who were strongly supported by popular feeling. On the 1st of
October, a Parliament of the Neapolitan kingdom was opened by
His Majesty Francis the First, who then and there took a
solemn oath to observe the Constitution, and even went out of
his way to profess his profound attachment for the principles
on which the new Government was based. General Pepé thereupon
resigned the Dictatorship he had assumed, and constitutional
liberty was deemed to have been finally established in
Southern Italy by a bloodless revolution. The rising on the
mainland was followed after a brief interval by a popular
insurrection in Sicily. The main object, however, of the
Sicilian Constitutionalists was to bring about a legislative
separation between the island and the kingdom of Naples
proper. … The Sicilian insurrection afforded Francis I. the
pretext he had looked for, from the commencement, for
overthrowing the Constitution to which he had personally
plighted his faith. The Allied Sovereigns took alarm at the
outbreak of the revolutionary spirit in Sicily, and a Congress
of the Great Powers was convoked at Laibach [see VERONA, THE
CONGRESS OF] to consider what steps required to be taken for
the protection of social order in the kingdom of Naples. …
By the Neapolitan Constitution the Sovereign was not at
liberty to leave the kingdom without the consent of the
Parliament. This consent was only given, after much
hesitation, in reliance upon the reiterated assurances of the
King, both publicly and privately, that his one object in
attending the Congress was to avert, if possible, a foreign
intervention. His Majesty also pledged himself most solemnly
not to sanction any change in the Constitution to which he had
sworn allegiance, and … he promised further that he would
not be a party to any reprisals being inflicted upon his
subjects for the part they might have taken in the
establishment of Constitutional liberty. As soon, however, as
Francis the First had arrived at Laibach, he yielded without a
protest to the alleged necessity for a foreign occupation of
his kingdom, with the avowed object of putting down the
Constitution. Without any delay being given, the Austrian
regiments crossed the frontier, preceded by a manifesto from
the King, calling upon his faithful subjects to receive the
army of occupation not as enemies, but as friends. … The
national troops, under General Pepé, were defeated with ease
by the Austrians, who in the course of a few weeks effected,
almost without opposition, the military occupation of the
whole kingdom [February-March, 1821]. Forthwith reprisals
commenced in grim earnest. On the plea that the resistance
offered by the Constitutionalists to the invading army
constituted an act of high treason, the King declared himself
absolved from all promises he had given previously to his
departure. A reign of terror was set on foot. … Signor Botta
thus sums up the net result of the punishments inflicted after
the return of the King in the Neapolitan provinces alone.
'About a thousand persons were condemned to death, imprisoned,
or exiled. Infinitely greater was the number of officers and
officials who were deprived of their posts by the
Commissioners of Investigation.' … The establishment of
Constitutional Government in the kingdom of the Two Sicilies,
and the resolution adopted at the instigation of Austria, by
the Congress of Laibach, to suppress the Neapolitan
Constitution by armed force, produced a profound effect
throughout Italy, and especially in Sardinia. The fact that
internal reforms were incompatible with the ascendency of
Austria in the Peninsula was brought home to the popular mind,
and, for the first time in the history of Italy, the desire
for civil liberty became identified with the national aversion
to foreign rule.
{1858}
In Piedmont there was a powerful Constitutional party,
composed chiefly of professional men, and a strong military
caste, aristocratic by birth and conviction, but opposed on
national grounds to the domination of Austria over Italy.
These two parties coalesced for a time upon the common
platform of Constitutional Reform and war with Austria; and
the result was the abortive rising of 1821. The insurrection,
however, though directed against the established Government,
had about it nothing of an anti-dynastic, or even of a
revolutionary character. On the contrary, the leaders of the
revolt professed, and probably with sincerity, that they were
carrying out the true wishes of their Sovereign. Their theory
was, that Victor Emmanuel I. was only compelled to adhere to
the Holy Alliance by considerations of foreign policy, and
that, if his hands were forced, he would welcome any
opportunity of severing himself from all complicity with
Austria. Acting on this belief, they determined to proclaim
the Constitution by a sort of coup d' état, and then, after
having declared war on Austria, to invade Lombardy, and thus
create a diversion in favour of the Neapolitans. It is certain
that Victor Emmanuel I. gave no sanction to, and was not even
cognisant of, this mad enterprise. … The troubles and
calamities of his early life had exhausted his energy; and his
one desire was to live at peace at home and abroad. On the
other hand, it is certain that Charles Albert [prince of
Savoy-Carignan, heir presumptive to the throne of Sardinia]
was in communication with the leaders of the insurrection,
though how far he was privy to their actual designs has never
yet been clearly ascertained. The insurrection broke out just
about the time when the Austrian troops were approaching the
Neapolitan frontiers. … The insurrection gained head
rapidly, and the example of Alexandria was followed by the
garrison of Turin. Pressure was brought to bear upon Victor
Emmanuel I., and he was led to believe that the only means of
averting civil war was to grant the Constitution. The
pressure, however, overshot its mark. On the one hand, the
King felt that he could not possibly withstand the demand for
a Constitution at the cost of having to order the regiments
which had remained loyal to fire upon the insurgents. On the
other hand, he did not feel justified in granting the
Constitution without the sanction of his brother and
[immediate] heir. In order, therefore, to escape from this
dilemma, his Majesty abdicated suddenly in favour of Charles
Felix [his brother]. As, however, the new Sovereign happened
to be residing at Modena, at the Court of his brother-in-law,
the Prince of Savoy-Carignan was appointed Regent until such
time as Charles Felix could return to the capital. Immediately
upon his abdication, Victor Emmanuel quitted Turin, and
Charles Albert was left in supreme authority as Regent of the
State. Within twelve hours of his accession to power, the
Regent proclaimed the Spanish Constitution as the fundamental
law of Piedmont. … The probability is … that Charles
Albert, or rather his advisers, were anxious to tie the hands
of the new Sovereign. They calculated that Charles Felix, who
was no longer young, and who was known to be bitterly hostile
to all Liberal theories of Government, would abdicate sooner
than accept the Crown of a Constitutional kingdom. This
calculation proved erroneous. … As soon as his Majesty
learned the news of what had occurred in his absence, he
issued a manifesto [March, 1821], declaring all the reforms
granted under the Regency to be null and void, describing the
authors of the Constitution as rebels, and avowing his
intention, in the case of necessity, of calling upon the
Allied Powers to assist him in restoring the legitimate
authority of the Crown. Meanwhile, he refused to accept the
throne till the restoration of order had given Victor Emmanuel
full freedom to reconsider the propriety of abdication. This
manifesto was followed by the immediate advance of an Austrian
corps d'armée to the frontier stream of the Ticino, as well as
by the announcement that the Russian Government had ordered an
army of 100,000 men to set out on their march towards Italy,
with the avowed object of restoring order in the Peninsula.
The population of Piedmont recognised at once, with their
practical good sense, that any effective resistance was out of
the question. … The courage of the insurgents gave way in
view of the obstacles which they had to encounter, and the
last blow was dealt to their cause by the sudden defection of
the Prince Regent. … Unable either to face his coadjutors in
the Constitutional pronunciamento, or to assume the
responsibility of an open conflict with the legitimate
Sovereign, the Regent left Turin secretly [March 21, 1821],
without giving any notice of his intended departure, and, on
arriving at Novara, formally resigned his short-lived power.
The leaders, however, of the insurrection had committed
themselves too deeply to follow the example of the Regent. A
Provisional Government was established at Turin, and it was
determined to march upon Novara, in the hope that the troops
collected there would fraternise with the insurgents. As soon
as it was known that the insurgents were advancing in force
from Turin, the Austrians, under General Bübner, crossed the
Ticino, and effected a junction with the Royal troops. When
the insurgents reached Novara, they suddenly found themselves
confronted, not by their own fellow-countrymen, but by an
Austrian army. A panic ensued, and the insurrectionary force
suffered a disastrous, though, fortunately, a comparatively
bloodless, defeat. After this disaster the insurrection was
virtually at an end. … The Austrians, with the consent of
Charles Felix, occupied the principal fortresses of Piedmont.
The old order of things was restored, and, upon Victor
Emmanuel's formal refusal to withdraw his abdication, Charles
Felix assumed the title of King of Sardinia. As soon as
military resistance had ceased, the insurrection was put down
with a strong hand."
E. Dicey,
Victor Emmanuel,
chapters 3-4.
"Henceforth the issue could not be misunderstood. The conflict
was not simply between the Neapolitans and their Bourbon king,
or between the Piedmontese and Charles Felix, but between
Italian Liberalism and European Absolutism. Santarosa and Pepé
cried out in their disappointment that the just cause would
have won had their timid colleagues been more daring, had
promises but been kept; we, however, see clearly that though
the struggle might have been prolonged, the result would have
been unchanged. Piedmont and Naples, had each of their
citizens been a hero, could not have overcome the Holy
Alliance [see HOLY ALLIANCE], which was their real antagonist.
{1859}
The revolutionists had not directly attacked the Holy
Alliance; they had not thrown down the gauntlet to Austria;
they had simply insisted that they had a right to
constitutional government; and Austria, more keen-witted than
they, had seen that to suffer a constitution at Naples or
Turin would be to acknowledge the injustice of those
principles by which the Holy Alliance had decreed that Europe
should be repressed to the end of time. So when the Carbonari
aimed at Ferdinand they struck Austria, and Austria struck
back a deadly blow. … But Austria and the Reactionists were
not content with simple victory; treating the revolution as a
crime, they at once proceeded to take vengeance. …
Ferdinand, the perjured Neapolitan king, tarried behind in
Florence, whilst the Austrians went down into his kingdom. …
But as soon as Ferdinand was assured that the Austrian
regiments were masters of Naples, he sent for that Prince of
Canosa whom he had been forced unwillingly to dismiss on
account of his outrageous cruelty five years before, and
deputed to him the task of restoring genuine Bourbon tyranny
in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. A better agent of
vindictive wrath than Canosa could not have been found; he was
troubled by no humane compunctions, nor by doubts as to the
justice of his fierce measures; to him, as to Torquemada,
persecution was a compound of duty and pleasure. … The right
of assembling, no matter for what purpose, being denied, the
universities, schools, and lyceums had to close; proscription
lists were hurriedly drawn up, and they contained not only the
names of those who had been prominent in the recent rising,
but also of all who had incurred suspicion for any political
acts as far back as 1793. … Houses were searched without
warrant; seals were broken open; some of the revelations of
the confessional were not sacred. The church-bells tolled
incessantly for victims led to execution. To strike deeper
terror, Canosa revived the barbarous torture of scourging in
public. … How many victims actually suffered during this
reign of terror we cannot tell. Canosa's list of the
proscribed had, it is said, more than four thousand names. The
prisons were choked with persons begging for trial; the
galleys of Pantelleria, Procida, and the Ponza Islands swarmed
with victims condemned for life; the scaffolds, erected in the
public squares of the chief towns, were daily occupied. … At
length, when his deputies had terrorized the country into
apparent submission, and when the Austrian regiments made it
safe for him to travel, Ferdinand quitted Florence and
returned to Naples. … In Sicily the revolution smouldered
and spluttered for years, in spite of remorseless efforts to
stamp it out; on the mainland, robberies and brigandage, and
outbreaks now political and now criminal, proved how delusive
was a security based on oppression and lies. Amid these
conditions Ferdinand passed the later years of his infamous
reign. … In Piedmont the retaliation was as effectual as in
Naples, but less blood was shed there. Della Torre took
command of the kingdom in the name of Charles Felix. …
Seventy-three officers were condemned to death, one hundred
and five to the galleys; but as nearly all of them had
escaped, they were hanged in effigy; only two, Lieutenant
Lanari and Captain Garelli, were executed. The property of the
condemned was sequestrated, their families were tormented, and
the commission, not content with sentencing those who had
taken an active part in the revolution, cashiered two hundred
and twenty-one officers who, while holding aloof from
Santarosa, had refused to join Della Torre at Novara and fight
against their countrymen. … The King … had soon reason to
learn the truth of a former epigram of his, 'Austria is a
bird-lime which you cannot wash off your fingers when you have
once touched it'; for Austria soon showed that her motive in
bolstering falling monarchs on their shaky thrones was not
simply philanthropic nor disinterested. General Bubna, on
taking possession of Alessandria, sent the keys of that
fortress to Emperor Francis, in order, he said,—and we wonder
whether there was no sarcasm in his voice,—in order to give
Charles Felix 'the pleasure of receiving them back from the
Emperor's hand.' 'Although I found this a very poor joke,'
wrote Charles Felix to his brother, 'I dissembled.' How,
indeed, could he do otherwise? … Charles Felix had in truth
become but the vassal of the hereditary enemy of his line, and
that not by conquest, but by his own invitation."
W. R. Thayer,
The Dawn of Italian Independence,
book 2, chapter 7 (volume 1).
ALSO IN:
P. Colletta,
History of Naples,
books 9-10 (volume 2).
A. Gallenga,
History of Piedmont,
volume 3, chapter 6.
R. H. Wrightson,
History of Modern Italy,
chapters 2-3, and 6.
ITALY: A. D. 1820-1822.
The Congresses of Troppau, Laybach and Verona.
See VERONA, THE CONGRESS OF.
ITALY: A. D. 1830-1832.
Revolt in Modena, Parma, and the Papal States,
suppressed by Austrian troops.
"The Revolution of 1830 [in France] made a natural impression
in a country which had many evils to complain of and which had
so lately been connected with France. The duke of Modena,
Francis IV., sought to make use of the liberal movement to
extend his rule over northern Italy. But at the last moment he
was terrified by threats from Vienna, turned against his
fellow-conspirators, and imprisoned them (February 3, 1831).
The people, however, were so alienated by his treachery that
he fled with his prisoners to seek safety in Austrian
territory. A provisional government was formed, and Modena was
declared a free state. Meanwhile the election of a new pope,
Gregory XVI., gave occasion for a rising in the papal states.
Bologna took the lead in throwing off its allegiance to Rome,
and in a few weeks its example was followed by the whole of
Romagna, Umbria, and the Marches. The two sons of Louis
Bonaparte, the late king of Holland, hastened to join the
insurgents, but the elder died at Forli (17 March), and thus
an eventful career was opened to the younger brother, the
future Napoleon III. Parma revolted against Maria Louisa, who
followed the example of the duke of Modena and fled to
Austria. The success of the movement, however, was very
short-lived. Austrian troops marched to the assistance of the
papacy, the rebellion was put down by force, and the exiled
rulers were restored. Louis Philippe, on whom the insurgents
had relied, had no sympathy with a movement in which members
of the Bonaparte family were engaged. But a temporary revival
of the insurrection brought the Austrians back to Romagna, and
a great outcry was raised in France against the king.
{1860}
To satisfy public opinion, Louis Philippe sent a French force
to seize Ancona (February 22, 1832), but it was a very
harmless demonstration, and had been explained beforehand to
the papal government. In Naples and Sardinia no disturbances
took place. Ferdinand II. succeeded his father Francis I. on
the Neapolitan throne in 1830, and satisfied the people by
introducing a more moderate system of government. Charles
Albert became king of Sardinia on the death of Charles Felix
(27 April, 1831), and found himself in a difficult position
between Austria, which had good reason to mistrust him, and
the liberal party, which he had betrayed."
R. Lodge,
History of Modern Europe,
chapter 25.
ALSO IN:
L. G. Farini,
The Roman State, 1815-1850,
volume 1, chapters 3-5.
ITALY: A. D. 1831-1848.
The Mission of Mazzini, the Revolutionist.
Young Italy.
"The Revolution of 1830, ineffectual as it seemed to its
promoters, was yet most significant. It failed in Italy and
Poland, in Spain and Portugal; it created a mongrel monarchy,
neither Absolute nor Constitutional, in France; only in
Belgium did it attain its immediate purpose. Nevertheless, if
we look beneath the surface, we see that it was one of those

epoch-marking events of which we can say, 'Things cannot be
again what until just now they were.' … The late risings in
the Duchies and Legations had brought no comfort to the
conspirators, but had taught them, on the contrary, how
ineffectual, how hopeless was the method of the secret
societies. After more than fifteen years they had not gained
an inch; they had only learned that their rulers would concede
nothing, and that Austria, their great adversary, had staked
her existence on maintaining thraldom in Italy. Innumerable
small outbursts and three revolutions had ended in the death
of hundreds and in the imprisonment or proscription of
thousands of victims. … Just when conspiracy, through
repeated failures, was thus discredited, there arose a leader
so strong and unselfish, so magnetic and patient and zealous,
that by him, if by anyone, conspiracy might be guided to
victory. This leader, the Great Conspirator, was Joseph
Mazzini, one of the half dozen supreme influences in European
politics during the nineteenth century, whose career will
interest posterity as long as it is concerned at all in our
epoch of transition. For just as Metternich was the High
Priest of the Old Regime, so Mazzini was the Prophet of a
Social Order, more just, more free, more spiritual than any
the world has known. He was an Idealist who would hold no
parley with temporizers, an enthusiast whom half-concessions
could not beguile: and so he came to be decried as a fanatic
or a visionary. … Mazzini joined the Carbonari, not without
suspecting that, under their complex symbolism and
hierarchical mysteries they concealed a fatal lack of harmony,
decision, and faith. … As he became better acquainted with
Carbonarism, his conviction grew stronger that no permanent
good could be achieved by it. … The open propaganda of his
Republican and Unitarian doctrines was of course impossible;
it must be carried on by a secret organization. But he was
disgusted with the existing secret societies: they lacked
harmony, they lacked faith, they had no distinct purpose;
their Masonic mummeries were childish and farcical. …
Therefore, Mazzini would have none of them; he would organize
a new secret society, and call it 'Young Italy,' whose
principles should be plainly understood by every one of its
members. It was to be composed of men under forty, in order to
secure the most energetic and disinterested members, and to
avoid the influence of older men, who, trained by the past
generation, were not in touch with the aspirations and needs
of the new. It was to awaken the People, the bone and sinew of
the nation; whereas the earlier sects had relied too much on
the upper and middle classes, whose traditions and interests
were either too aristocratic or too commercial. Roman
Catholicism had ceased to be spiritual; it no longer purified
and uplifted the hearts of the Italians. … Young Italy
aimed, therefore, to substitute for the mediæval dogmas and
patent idolatries of Rome a religion based on Reason, and so
simple as to be within the comprehension of the humblest
peasant. … The doctrines of the new sect spread, but since
secret societies give the census-taker no account of their
membership, we cannot cite figures to illustrate the growth of
Young Italy. Contrary to Mazzini's expectations, it was
recruited, not so much from the People, as from the Middle
Class, the professional men, and the tradesmen." In 1831
Mazzini was forced into exile, at Marseilles, from which city
he planned an invasion of Savoy. The project was discovered,
and the Sardinian government revenged itself cruelly upon the
patriots within its reach. "In a few weeks, eleven alleged
conspirators had been executed, many more had been sentenced
to the galleys, and others, who had escaped; were condemned in
contumacy. Among the men who fled into exile at this time were
… Vincent Gioberti and Joseph Garibaldi. … To an
enthusiast less determined than Mazzini, this calamity would
have been a check; to him, however, it was a spur. Instead of
abandoning the expedition against Savoy, he worked with might
and main to hurry it on. … One column, in which were fifty
Italians and twice as many Poles, … was to enter Savoy by
way of Annemasse. A second column had orders to push on from
Nyon; a third, starting from Lyons, was to march towards
Chambéry. Mazzini, with a musket on his shoulder, accompanied
the first party. To his surprise, the peasants showed no
enthusiasm when the tricolor flag was unfurled and the
invaders shouted 'God and People! Liberty and the Republic!'
before them. At length some carabineers and a platoon of
troops appeared. A few shots were fired. Mazzini fainted; his
comrades dispersed across the Swiss border, taking him with
them. … His enemies attributed his fainting to cowardice; he
himself explained it as the result of many nights of
sleeplessness, of great fatigue, fever and cold. … To all
but the few concerned in it, this first venture of Young Italy
seemed a farce, the disproportion between its aim and its
achievement was so enormous, and Mazzini's personal collapse
was so ignominious. Nevertheless, Italian conspiracy had now
and henceforth that head for lack of which it had so long
floundered amid vague and contradictory purposes. The young
Idealist had been beaten in his first encounter with obdurate
Reality, but he was not discouraged. … Now began in earnest
that 'apostolate' of his, which he laid down only at his
death.
{1861}
Young Italy was established beyond the chance of being
destroyed by an abortive expedition; Young Poland, Young
Hungary, Young Europe itself, sprang up after the Mazzinian
pattern; the Liberals and revolutionists of the Continent felt
that their cause was international, and in their affliction
they fraternized. No one could draw so fair and reasonable a
Utopia for them as Mazzini drew; no one could so fire them
with a sense of duty, with hope, with energy. He became the
mainspring of the whole machine—truly an infernal machine to
the autocrats—of European conspiracy. The redemption of Italy
was always his nearest aim, but his generous principle reached
out over other nations, for in the world that he prophesied
every people must be free. Proscribed in Piedmont, expelled
from Switzerland, denied lodging in France, he took refuge in
London, there to direct, amid poverty and heartache, the whole
vast scheme of plots. His bread he earned by writing critical
and literary essays for the English reviews,—he quickly
mastered the English language so as to use it with remarkable
vigor,—and all his leisure he devoted to the preparation of
political tracts, and to correspondence with numberless
confederates. … He was the consulting physician for all the
revolutionary practitioners of Europe. Those who were not his
partisans disparaged his influence, asserting that he was only
a man of words; but the best proof of his power lies in the
anxiety he caused monarchs and cabinets, and in the
precautions they took to guard against him. … Mazzini and
Metternich! For nearly twenty years they were the antipodes of
European politics. One in his London garret, poor, despised,
yet indomitable and sleepless, sending his influence like an
electric current through all barriers to revivify the heart of
Italy and of Liberal Europe; the other in his Vienna palace,
haughty, famous, equally alert and cunning, … shedding over
Italy and over Europe his upas-doctrines of torpor and decay!"
W. R. Thayer,
The Dawn of Italian Independence,
book 3, chapter 1 (volume 1).
ALSO IN:
W. L. Garrison,
Joseph Mazzini,
chapters 2-5.
J. Mazzini,
Collected Works,
volume 1.
ITALY: A. D. 1848.
Expulsion of Jesuits.
See JESUITS: A. D. 1769-1871.
ITALY: A. D. 1848-1849.
Insurrection and revolution throughout the peninsula.
French occupation of Rome.
Triumph of King "Bomba" in Naples and Sicily.
Disastrous war of Sardinia with Austria.
Lombardy and Venice enslaved anew.
"The revolution of 1831, which affected the States of the
Church, Modena, and Parma, had been suppressed, like the still
earlier rebellions in Naples and Piedmont, by Austrian
intervention. … Hence, all the hatred of the Italians was
directed against foreign rule, as the only obstacle to the
freedom and unity of the peninsula. … The secret societies,
and the exiles in communication with them—especially Joseph
Mazzini, who issued his commands from London—took care that
the national spirit should not be buried beneath material
interests, but should remain ever wakeful. Singularly, the
first encouragement came from" Rome. "Pope Gregory XVI., …
had died June 1st, 1846, and been succeeded by the
fifty-four-year-old Cardinal Count Mastai Ferretti, who took
the name of Pius IX. If the pious world which visited him was
charmed by the amiability and clemency of its new head, the
cardinals were dismayed at the reforms which this new head
would fain introduce in the States of the Church and in all
Italy. He published an amnesty for all political offences;
permitted the exiles to return with impunity; allowed the
Press freer scope; threw open the highest civil offices to
laymen; summoned from the notables of the provinces a council
of state, which was to propose reforms; bestowed a liberal
municipal constitution on the city of Rome; and endeavored to
bring about an Italian confederation. … After the French
revolution of 1848 he granted a constitution. There was a
first chamber, to be named by the Pope, and a second chamber,
to be elected by the people, while the irresponsible college
of cardinals formed a sort of privy council. A new era
appeared to be dawning. The old-world capital, Rome, once the
mistress of the nations, still the mistress of all Roman
Catholic hearts, was to become the central point of Italy. …
But when the flames of war broke out in the north [see below],
and the fate of Italy was about to be decided between Sardinia
and Austria on the old battle fields of Lombardy, the Romans
demanded from the Pope a declaration of war against Austria,
and the despatch of Roman troops to join Charles Albert's
army. Pius rejected their demands as unsuited to his papal
office, and so broke with the men of the extreme party. … In
this time of agitation Pius thought that in Count Pellegrino
Rossi, of Carrara, … he had found the right man to carry out
a policy of moderate liberalism, and on the 17th of September,
1848, he set him at the head of a new ministry. The anarchists
… could not forgive Rossi for grasping the reins with a firm
hand." On the 15th of November, as he alighted from his
carriage at the door of the Chambers, he was stabbed in the
neck by an assassin, and died on the spot. He was about, when
murdered, to open the Chambers with a speech, in which he
intended "to promise abolition of the rule of the cardinals
and introduction of a lay government, and to insist upon
Italy's independence and unity. … The next day an armed
crowd appeared before the Quirinal and attacked the guard,
which consisted of Swiss mercenaries, some of the bullets
flying into the Pope's antechamber. He had to accept a radical
ministry and dismiss the Swiss troops. … Pius fled in
disguise from Rome to Gaeta, November 24th, and sought shelter
with the King of Naples. Mazzini and his party had free scope.
A constitutional convention was summoned, which declared the
temporal power of the Pope abolished (February 5th, 1849), and
Rome a republic. To them attached itself Tuscany. Grand-duke
Leopold II. had granted a constitution, February 17th, 1848,
but nevertheless the republican-minded ministry of Guerrazzi
compelled him to join the Pope at Gaeta, February 21st, 1849.
The republic was then proclaimed in Tuscany and union with
Rome resolved upon." But Louis Napoleon, President of the
French republic, intervened. "Marshal Oudinot was despatched
with 8,000 men. He landed in Civita Vecchia, April 26th, 1849,
and appeared before the walls of Rome on the 30th, expecting
to take the city without any trouble. But … after a fight of
several hours, he had to retreat to Civita Vecchia with a loss
of 700 men.
{1862}
A few days later the Neapolitan army, which was to attack the
rebels from the south, was defeated at Velletri; and the
Spanish troops, the third in the league against the red
republic, prudently avoided a battle. But Oudinot received
considerable re-enforcements, and on June 3d he advanced
against Rome for the second time, with 35,000 men, while the
force in the city consisted of about 19,000, mostly volunteers
and national guards. In spite of the bravery of Garibaldi and
the volunteers, into whom he breathed his spirit, Rome had to
capitulate, after a long and bloody struggle, owing to the
superiority of the French artillery. On the 4th of July
Oudinot entered the silent capital. Garibaldi, Mazzini, and
their followers fled. … Pius, for whose nerves the Roman
atmosphere was still too strong, did not return until the 4th
of April, 1850. His ardor for reform was cooled. … In the
Legations they had to protect themselves by Austrian bayonets,
and in Rome and Civita Vecchia by French. This lasted in the
Legations until 1859, and in Rome and Civita Vecchia until
1866 and 1870. Simultaneously with Rome the south of Italy had
entered into the movement so characteristic of the year 1848.
The scenes of 1820 and 1821 were repeated." The Sicilians
again demanded independence; expelled the Neapolitan garrison
from Palermo; refused to accept a constitution proffered by
King Ferdinand II., which created a united parliament for
Naples and Sicily; voted in a Sicilian parliament the
perpetual exclusion of the Bourbon dynasty from the throne,
and offered the crown of Sicily to a son of the king of
Sardinia, who declined the gift. In Naples, Ferdinand yielded
at first to the storm, and sent, under compulsion, a force of
13,000 Neapolitan troops, commanded by the old revolutionist,
General Pepé, to join the Sardinians against Austria. This was
in April, 1848. A month later he crushed the revolution with
his Swiss mercenaries, recalled his army from northern Italy,
and was master, again, in his capital and his peninsular
kingdom. The following summer he landed 8,000 troops in
Sicily; his army bombarded and stormed Messina in September;
defeated the insurgents at the foot of Mount Etna; took
Catania by storm in April, 1849, and entered Palermo, after a
short bombardment, on the 17th of May, having gained for its
master the nickname of "King Bomba." "He ordered a general
disarmament, and established an oppressive military rule over
the whole island; and there was no more talk of parliament and
constitution. All these struggles in central and southern
Italy stood in close connection with the events of 1848 and
1849 in upper Italy. … In the north the struggle was to
shake off the Austrian yoke. … During the month of January,
1848, there was constant friction between the citizens and the
military in Milan and the university cities of Pavia and
Padua. … March 18th, Milan rose. All classes took part in
the fight; and the eighty-two-year-old field-marshal Count
Joseph Radetzky … was obliged, after a street fight of two
days, to draw his troops out of the city, call up as quickly
as possible the garrisons of the neighboring cities, and take
up his position in the famous Quadrilateral, between
Peschiera, Verona, Legnano, and Mantua. March 22d, Venice,
where Count Zichy commanded, was lost for the Austrians," who
yielded without resistance, releasing their political
prisoners, one of whom, the celebrated Daniel Manin, a
Venetian lawyer, took his place at the head of a provisional
government. "Other cities followed the lead of Venice. The
little duchies of Modena and Parma could hold out no longer;
Dukes Francis and Charles fled to Austria, and provisional
governments sprung up behind them. Like Naples, the duchies
and Tuscany also sent their troops across the Po to help the
Sardinians in the decisive struggle. The hopes of all Italy
were centred on Sardinia and its king. … Charles Albert,
called to the aid of Lombardy, entered Milan to win for
himself the Lombardo-Venetian kingdom and the hegemony of
Italy. He presented himself as the liberator of the peninsula,
but it was not a part for which he was qualified by his
antecedents. … He was a brave soldier, but a poor captain.
… His opponent, Radetzky, was old, but his spirit was still
young and fresh. … Radetzky received re-enforcements from
Austria, and on the 6th of May repelled the attack of the
Sardinian king south-west of Verona [at Santa Lucia]. May
29th, he carried the intrenchments at Cartatone; but as the
Sardinians were victorious at Goito and took Peschiera, while
Garibaldi with his Alpine rangers threatened the Austrian
rear, he had to desist from further advances, and limit his
operations to the recapture of Vicenza and the other cities of
the Venetian main-land. In the mean time the Austrian court,
chiefly at the instigation of the British embassy, had opened
negotiations with the Lombards, and offered them their
independence on condition of their assuming a considerable
share of the public debt, and concluding a favorable
commercial treaty with Austria. But, as the Lombards felt sure
of acquiring their freedom more cheaply, they did not accept
the proposition. Radetzky was now in a position to assume an
active offensive. He won a brilliant victory at Custozza, July
25th. The Sardinians attempted to make a stand at Goito and
again at Volta, but were driven back, and Radetzky advanced on
Milan. Charles Albert had to evacuate the city," and on the
9th of August he concluded an armistice, withdrawing his
troops from Lombardy and the duchies. But in the following
March (1849) he was persuaded to renew the war, and he placed
his army under the command of the Polish general Chrzanowski.
It was the intention of the Sardinians to advance again into
Lombardy, but they had no opportunity. "Radetzky crossed the
Ticino, and in a four days' campaign on Sardinian soil
defeated the foe so completely—March 21st at Mortara, and
March 23d at Novara—that there could be no more thought of a
renewal of the struggle. … Charles Albert, who had vainly
sought death upon the battle-field, was weary of his throne
and his life. In the night of March 23d, at Novara, he laid
down the crown and declared his eldest son king of Sardinia,
under the title of Victor Emmanuel II. He hoped that the
latter would obtain a more favorable peace from the Austrians.
… Then, saying farewell to his wife by letter, attended by
but two servants, he travelled through France and Spain to
Portugal. He died at Oporto, July 26th, 1849, of repeated
strokes of apoplexy." After long negotiations, the new king
concluded a treaty of peace with Austria on the 6th of August.
"Sardinia retained its boundaries intact, and paid 75,000,000
lire as indemnity. The false report of a Sardinian victory at
Novara had caused the population of Brescia to fall upon the
Austrian garrison and drive them into the citadel.
{1863}
General Haynau hastened thither with 4,000 men well provided
with artillery. The city was bombarded, and on the 1st of
April it was reoccupied, after a fearful street fight, in
which even women took part; but Haynau stained his name by
inhuman cruelties, especially toward the gentler sex. Venice
was not able to hold out much longer. It had at first attached
itself to Sardinia, but after the defeat of the Sardinians the
republic was proclaimed. Without the city, in Haynau's camp,
swamp fever raged; within, hunger and cholera. On the news of
the capitulation of Hungary, August 22d, it surrendered, and
the heads of the revolution, Manin and Pepe, went into exile.
All Italy was again brought under its old masters."
W. Müller,
Political History of Recent Times,
section 16.
The siege of Venice, "reckoning from April 2, when the
Assembly voted to resist at any cost, lasted 146 days; but the
blockade by land began on June 18, 1848, when the Austrians
first occupied Mestre. During the twenty-one weeks of actual
siege, 900 Venetian troops were killed, and probably 7,000 or
8,000 were at different times on the sick-list. Of the
Austrians, 1,200 were killed in engagements, 8,000 succumbed
to fevers and cholera, and as many more were in the hospitals:
80,000 projectiles were fired from the Venetian batteries;
from the Austrian, more than 120,000. During the seventeen
months of her independence, Venice raised sixty million
francs, exclusive of patriotic donations in plate and
chattels. When Gorzkowsky came to examine the accounts of the
defunct government he exclaimed, 'I did not believe that such
Republican dogs were such honest men.' With the fate of Venice
was quenched the last of the fires of liberty which the
Revolution had kindled throughout Europe in 1848. Her people,
whom the world had come to look down upon as degenerate,—mere
trinket-makers and gondoliers,—had proved themselves second
to none in heroism, superior to all in stability. At Venice,
from first to last, we have had to record no excesses, no
fickle changes, no slipping down of power from level to level
till it sank in the mire of anarchy. She had her demagogues
and her passions, but she would be the slave of neither; and
in nothing did she show her character more worthily than in
recognizing Manin and making him her leader. He repaid her
trust by absolute fidelity. I can discover no public act of
his to which you can impute any other motive than solicitude
for her welfare. The common people loved him as a father,
revered him as a patron saint; the upper classes, the
soldiers, the politicians, whatever may have been the
preferences of individuals or the ambition of cliques, felt
that he was indispensable, and gave him wider and wider
authority as danger increased. … The little lawyer, with the
large, careworn face and blue eyes, had redeemed Venice from
her long shame of decadence and servitude. But Europe would
not suffer his work to stand; Europe preferred that Austria
rather than freedom should rule at Venice. At daybreak on
August 28 a mournful throng of the common people collected
before Manin's house in Piazza San Paterniano. 'Here is our
good father, poor dear fellow,' they were heard to say. 'He
has endured so much for us. May God bless him!' They escorted
him and his family to the shore, whence he embarked on the
French ship Pluton, for he was among the forty prominent
Venetians whom the Austrians condemned to banishment. At six
o'clock the Pluton weighed anchor and passed through the
winding channel of the lagune, out into the Adriatic. Long
before the Austrian banners were hoisted that morning on the
flagstaffs of St. Mark's, Venice, with her fair towers and
glittering domes, had vanished forever from her Great
Defender's sight. Outwardly, the Revolutionary Movement had
failed; in France it had resulted in a spurious Republic, soon
to become a tinsel Empire; elsewhere, there was not even a
make-believe success to hide, if but for a while, the failure.
In Italy, except in Piedmont, Reaction had full play. Bomba
filled his Neapolitan and Sicilian prisons with political
victims, and demonstrated again that the Bourbon government
was a negation of God. Pius IX., having loitered at Naples
with his Paragon of Virtue until April, 1850, returned to
Rome, to be henceforth now the puppet and now the accomplice
of Cardinal Antonelli in every scheme for oppressing his
subjects, and for resisting Liberal tendencies. He held his
temporal sovereignty through the kindness of the Bonapartist
charlatan in France; it was fated that he should lose it
forever when that charlatan lost his Empire. In Tuscany,
Leopold thanked Austria for permitting him to rule over a
people the intelligent part of which despised him. In Modena,
the Duke was but an Austrian deputy sheriff. Lombardy and
Venetia were again the prey of the double-beaked eagle of
Hapsburg. Only in Piedmont did Constitutionalism and liberty
survive to become, under an honest king and a wise minister,
the ark of Italy's redemption."
W. R. Thayer,
The Dawn of Italian Independence,
book 5, chapter 6 (volume 2).
ALSO IN:
W. E. Gladstone,
Gleanings of Past Years,
volume 4, chapters 1-4.
L. C. Farini,
The Roman State from 1815 to 1850,
books 2-7 (volumes 1-4).
H. Martin,
Daniel Manin and Venice in 1848-49.
G. Garibaldi,
Autobiography,
period 2 (volumes 1-2).
L. Mariotti,
Italy in 1848.
E. A. V.,
Joseph Mazzini,
chapters 4-5.
The Chevalier O'Clery,
History of the Italian Revolution,
chapters 6-7.
ITALY: A. D. 1855.
Sardinia in the alliance of the Crimean War against Russia.
See RUSSIA: A. D. 1854-1856.
ITALY: A. D. 1856-1859.
Austro-Italy before Europe in the Congress of Paris.
Alliance of France with Sardinia.
War with Austria.
Emancipation of Lombardy.
Peace of Villa-franca.
"The year 1856 brought an armistice between the contending
powers [in the Crimea—see RUSSIA: A. D. 1853-1854 to
1854-1856], followed by the Congress of Paris, which settled
the terms of peace. At that Congress Count Cavour and the
Marquis Villamarina represented their country side by side
with the envoys of the great European States. The Prime
Minister of Piedmont, while taking his part in the
re-establishment of the general peace with a skill and tact
which won him the favour of his brother plenipotentiaries,
never lost sight of the further object he had in view, namely,
that of laying before the Congress the condition of Italy. …
His efforts were rewarded with success.
{1864}
On the 30th March, 1856, the treaty of peace was signed, and
on the 8th April Count Walewski called the attention of the
members of the Congress to the state of Italy. … Count Buol,
the Austrian plenipotentiary, would not admit that the
Congress had any right to deal with the Italian question at
all; he declined courteously, but firmly, to discuss the
matter. … But although Austria refused to entertain the
question, the fact remained that the condition of Italy now
stood condemned, not by revolutionary chiefs, nor by the
rulers of Piedmont alone, but by the envoys of some of the
leading powers of Europe speaking officially in the name of
their respective sovereigns. It was in truth a great
diplomatic victory for Italy. … No one in Europe was more
thoroughly convinced than Napoleon III. that the discontent of
Italy and the plots of a section of Italians had their origin
in the despotism which annihilated all national life in the
Peninsula with the single exception of Piedmont. He felt
keenly, also, how false, was his own position at Rome. …
France upheld the Pope as a temporal sovereign, but,
nevertheless, the latter ruled in a manner which pleased
Austria and which displeased France. … Count Cavour went
privately to meet the French Emperor at Plombières in July,
1858. During that interview it was arranged that France should
ally herself actively with Piedmont against Austria. … The
first public indication of the attitude taken up by France
with regard to Austria and Italy was given on the 1st January,
1859, when Napoleon III. received the diplomatic corps at the
Tuileries. Addressing Baron Hubner, the Austrian Ambassador,
the French Emperor said: 'I regret that the relations between
us are bad; tell your sovereign, however, that my sentiments
towards him are not changed.' … The ties which united France
to Piedmont were strengthened by the marriage, in the end of
January, 1859, of the Princess Clotilde, the eldest daughter
of Victor Emmanuel, with Prince Napoleon, the first cousin of
the French Emperor. … An agreement was made by which the
Emperor Napoleon promised to give armed assistance to Piedmont
if she were attacked by Austria. The result, in case the
allies were successful, was to be the formation of a northern
kingdom of Italy. … Both Austria and Piedmont increased
their armaments and raised loans in preparation for war. Men
of all ranks and conditions of life flocked to Turin from the
other States of Italy to join the Piedmontese army, or enrol
themselves among the volunteers of Garibaldi, who had hastened
to offer his services to the king against Austria. …
Meanwhile, diplomacy made continual efforts to avert war. …
The idea of a European Congress was started. … Then came the
proposition of a general disarmament by way of staying the
warlike preparations, which were taking ever enlarged
proportions. On the 18th April, 1859, the Cabinet of Turin
agreed to the principle of disarmament at the special request
of England and France, on the condition that Piedmont took her
seat at the Congress. The Cabinet of Vienna had made no reply
to this proposition. Then suddenly it addressed, on the 23rd
April, an ultimatum to the Cabinet of Turin demanding the
instant disarmament of Piedmont, to which a categorical reply
was asked for within three days. At the expiration of the
three days Count Cavour, who was delighted at this hasty step
of his opponent, remitted to Baron Kellerberg, the Austrian
envoy, a refusal to comply with the request made. War was now
inevitable. Victor Emmanuel addressed a stirring proclamation
to his army on the 27th April, and two days afterwards another
to the people of his own kingdom and to the people of Italy.
… On the 30th April some French troops arrived at Turin. On
the 13th May Napoleon III. disembarked at Genoa. … Although
the Austrian armies proceeded to cross the Ticino and invade
the Piedmontese territory, they failed to make a decisive
march on Turin. Had Count Giúlay, the Austrian commander, done
so without hesitation, he might well have reached the capital
of Piedmont before the French had arrived in sufficient force
to enable the little Piedmontese army to arrest the invasion.
As it was, the opportunity was lost never to occur again. In
the first engagements at Montebello and Palestro [May 20, 30
and 31] the advantage rested decidedly with the allies. … On
the 4th June the French fought the battle of Magenta, which
ended, though not without a hard struggle, in the defeat of
the Austrians. On the 8th the Emperor Napoleon and King Victor
Emmanuel entered Milan, where they were received with a
welcome as sincere as it was enthusiastic. The rich Lombard
capital hastened to recognise the king as its sovereign. While
there he met in person, Garibaldi, who was in command of the
volunteer corps, whose members had flocked from all parts of
Italy to carry on under his command the war in the mountainous
districts of the north against Austria. … The allied troops
pursued their march onwards towards the River Mincio, upon
whose banks two of the fortresses of the famous Quadrilateral
are situated. On the 24th June they encountered the Austrian
army at Solferino and San Martino. French, Piedmontese, and
Austrians, fought with courage and determination. Nor was it
until after ten or eleven hours of hard fighting that the
allies forced their enemy to retreat and took possession of
the positions he had occupied in the morning. While victory
thus crowned the efforts of France and Piedmont in battle,
events of no little importance were taking place in Italy.
Ferdinand II. of Naples died on the 22nd May, just after he
had received the news of the successes of the allies at
Montebello and Palestro. He was succeeded by his son, Francis
II. … Count Salmour was at once despatched by the
Piedmontese Government … with the offer of a full and fair
alliance between Turin and Naples. The offer was rejected.
Francis determined to follow his father's example of
absolutism at home while giving all his influence to Austria.
Thus it was that the young Neapolitan king sowed, and as he
sowed so he reaped. Leopold, the Grand Duke of Tuscany, had in
April refused the proffered alliance of Piedmont. … Finally
he left Florence and took refuge in the Austrian camp. A
provisional Government was formed, which placed the Tuscan
forces at the disposal of Victor Emmanuel. This change was
effected in a few hours without bloodshed or violence. The
Duchess of Parma went away to Switzerland with her young son,
Duke Robert. Francis Duke of Modena betook himself, with what
treasures he had time to lay his hands on, to the more
congenial atmosphere of the head-quarters of the Austrian
army. … 'The deputations which hastened from Tuscany, Parma,
and Modena, to offer their allegiance to Victor Emmanuel, were
received without difficulty. It was agreed that their complete
annexation should be deferred until after the conclusion of
peace.
{1865}
In the meanwhile the Piedmontese Government was to assume the
responsibility of maintaining order and providing for military
action. … The French and Piedmontese armies had won the
battle of Solferino, and driven the enemy across the Mincio;
their fleets were off the lagoons of Venice, and were even
visible from the lofty Campanile of St. Mark. Italy was
throbbing with a movement of national life daily gathering
volume and force. Europe was impatiently expecting the next
move. It took the unexpected form of an armistice, which the
Emperor of the French proposed, on his sole responsibility, to
the Emperor Francis Joseph on the 8th July. On the 12th the
preliminaries of peace were signed at Villafranca. Victor
Emmanuel was opposed to this act of his ally, but was unable
to prevent it. The Italians were bitterly disappointed, and
their anger was only too faithfully represented by Cavour
himself. He hastened to the headquarters of the king,
denounced in vehement language the whole proceeding, advised
his majesty not to sign the armistice, not to accept Lombardy
[see below], and to withdraw his troops from the Mincio to the
Ticino. But Victor Emmanuel, though sympathising with the
feelings of Italy and of his Minister, took a wiser and more
judicious course than the one thus recommended. He accepted
Cavour's resignation and signed the armistice, appending to
his signature these words:—'J'accepte pour ce qui me
concerne.' He reserved his liberty of action for the future
and refused to pledge himself to anything more than a
cessation of hostilities."
J. W. Probyn,
Italy from 1815 to 1890,
chapters 9-10.
ALSO IN:
C. Bossoli,
The War in Italy.
C. de Mazade,
Life of Count Cavour,
chapters 2-5.
C. Arrivabene,
Italy under Victor Emmanuel,
chapters 1-13 (volume 1).
C. Adams,
Great Campaigns, 1796-1870,
pages 271-340.
L. Kossuth,
Memories of My Exile.
Countess E. M. Cesaresco,
Italian Characters in the Epoch of Unification.

ITALY: A. D. 1859-1861.
The Treaty of Zurich and its practical negation.
Annexation of Central Italy to Sardinia by Plebiscite.
Revolution in Sicily and Naples.
Garibaldi's great campaign of liberation.
The Sardinian army in the Papal States.
The new Kingdom of Italy proclaimed.
"The treaty concluded at Zurich in November [1859] between the
ambassadors of France, Austria, and Sardinia substantially
ratified the preliminaries arranged at Villafranca. Lombardy
passed to the king of Sardinia; Venetia was retained by
Austria. The rulers of Modena and Parma were to be restored,
the papal power again established in the Legations, while the
various states of the peninsula, excepting Sardinia and the
Two Sicilies, were to form a confederation under the
leadership of the Pope. According to the terms of the treaty
Lombardy was the only state directly benefited by the war. …
The people of central Italy showed no inclination to resume
the old régime. They maintained their position firmly and
consistently, despite the decisions of the Zurich Congress,
the advice of the French emperor, and the threatening attitude
of Naples and Rome. … The year closed without definite
action, leaving the provisional governments in control. In
fact, matters were simply drifting, and it seemed imperative
to take some vigorous measures to terminate so abnormal a
condition of affairs. Finally the project of a European
congress was suggested. There was but one opinion as to who
should represent Italy in such an event. … Cavour …
returned to the head of affairs in January. This event was
simultaneous with the removal of M. Walewski at Paris and a
change in the policy of the French government. The emperor no
longer advised the central Italians to accept the return of
their rulers. His influence at Rome was exercised to induce
the Pope to allow his subjects in the Legations to have their
will. … The scheme of a European congress was abandoned.
With France at his back to neutralize Austria, Cavour had
nothing to fear. … He suggested to the emperor that the
central Italians be allowed to settle their fate by
plebiscite. This method was to a certain extent a craze with
the emperor, … and Cavour was not surprised at the
affirmative reply he received to his proposal. The elections
took place in March, and by an overwhelming majority the
people of Parma, Modena, Tuscany, and the Legations declared
for annexation to Sardinia. Austria protested, but could do no
more in the face of England and France. Naples followed the
Austrian example, while almost simultaneously with the news of
the elections there arrived at Turin the papal excommunication
for Victor Emmanuel and his subjects. On the 2d of April the
king opened the new parliament and addressed himself to the
representatives of 12,000,000 Italians. The natural enthusiasm
attending the session was seriously dampened by the royal
announcement that, subject to the approval of their citizens
and the ratification of parliament, Nice and Savoy were to be
returned to France. It was, in fact, the concluding
installment of the price arranged at Plombières to be paid for
the French troops in the campaign of the previous year. …
General Garibaldi, who sat in the parliament for Nice, was
especially prominent in the angry debates that followed. …
When the transfer had been ratified he withdrew to a humble
retreat in the island of Caprera. … But the excitement over
the loss of Nice and Savoy was soon diminished by the
startling intelligence which arrived of rebellion in the
Neapolitan dominions. Naples was mutinous, while in Sicily,
Palermo and Messina were in open revolt. Garibaldi's time had
come. Leaving Caprera, he made for Piedmont, and hastily
organized a band of volunteers to assist in the popular
movement. On the night of May 6, with about a thousand
enthusiastic spirits, he embarked from the coast near Genoa in
two steamers and sailed for Sicily. Cavour in the mean time
winked at this extraordinary performance. He dispatched
Admiral Persano with a squadron ostensibly to intercept the
expedition, but in reality 'to navigate between it and the
hostile Neapolitan fleet.' On the 11th Garibaldi landed safely
at Marsala under the sleepy guns of a Neapolitan man-of-war.
On the 14th he was at Salemi, where he issued the following
proclamation: 'Garibaldi, commander-in-chief of the national
forces in Sicily, on the invitation of the principal citizens,
and on the deliberation of the free communes of the island,
considering that in times of war it is necessary that the
civil and military powers should be united in one person,
assumes in the name of Victor Emmanuel, King of Italy, the
Dictatorship in Sicily.'" On the 26th Garibaldi attacked
Palermo; on the 6th of June he was in possession of the city
and citadel; on the 25th of July Messina was surrendered to him.
{1866}
"Perhaps the excitement at Turin during these days was second
only to that which animated the great Sicilian cities. The
guns of Bomba's fleet at Palermo were no more active than the
diplomatic artillery which the courts of Central Europe
trained upon the government at Turin. … Cavour's position at
this time was a trying, delicate, and from some points of view
a questionable one. He had publicly expressed regret for
Garibaldi's expedition, while privately he encouraged it. …
Cavour's desire to see Garibaldi in Calabria was changed, a
little later. La Farina was at Palermo in behalf of the
Sardinian government, to induce Garibaldi to consent to the
immediate annexation of Sicily to the new Italian kingdom.
This Garibaldi declined to do, preferring to wait until he
could lay the entire Neapolitan realm and Rome as well at the
feet of Victor Emmanuel. This altered the aspect of affairs.
It was evident that Garibaldi was getting headstrong. It was
Cavour's constant solicitude to keep the Italian question in
such a shape as to allow no foreign power a pretext for
interference. Garibaldi's design against Rome garrisoned by
French troops would be almost certain to bring on foreign
complications and ruin the cause of Italian unity." On the
19th of August, Garibaldi crossed his army from Sicily to the
mainland and advanced on Naples. "On the evening of September
6 the king embarked on a Spanish ship, and leaving his
mutinous navy at anchor in the bay, quit forever those
beautiful shores which his race had too long defiled. On the
morning of September 7 Garibaldi was at Salerno; before night
he had reached Naples, and its teeming thousands had run mad.
… The Neapolitan fleet went over en masse to Garibaldi, and
by him was placed under the orders of the Sardinian admiral.
The Garibaldian troops came swarming into the city, some by
land and others by sea. … Francis II. had shut himself up in
the fortress of Gaeta with the remnants of his army, holding
the line of the Volturno. … At Turin the state of unrest
continued. Garibaldi's presence at Naples was attended with
grave perils. Of course his designs upon Rome formed the
principal danger, but his conspicuous inability as an
organizer was one of scarcely less gravity. … Sardinian
troops had become a necessity of the situation. … There was
no time to lose. There could be no difficulty in finding an
excuse to enter papal territory. The inhabitants of Umbria and
the Marches, who had never ceased to appeal for annexation to
the new kingdom, were suppressed by an army of foreign
mercenaries that the Pope had mustered beneath his banner. …
Cavour had interceded in vain with the Vatican to alter its
course toward its disaffected subjects. At last, on September
7, the day Garibaldi entered Naples, he sent the royal
ultimatum to Cardinal Antonelli at Rome. … On the 11th the
unfavorable reply of Antonelli was received, and the same day
the Sardinian troops crossed the papal frontier. … Every
European power except England, which expressed open
satisfaction, protested against this action. There was an
imposing flight of ambassadors from Turin, and an ominous
commotion all along the diplomatic horizon. Cavour had not
moved, however, without a secret understanding with Napoleon.
… The Sardinian army advanced rapidly in two columns.
General Fanti seized Perugia and Spoleto, while Cialdini on
the east of the Apennines utterly destroyed the main papal
army under the French general Lamoricière at Castelfidardo
[September 17]. Lamoricière with a few followers gained
Ancona, but finding that town covered by the guns of the
Sardinian fleet, he was compelled to surrender. 'The
pontifical mercenary corps' became a thing of the past, Cavour
could turn his whole attention to Naples. He had obtained from
parliament an enthusiastic permission to receive, if tendered,
the allegiance of the Two Sicilies. The army was ordered
across the Neapolitan frontier, and the king left for Ancona
to take command. In the mean time on October 1 Garibaldi had
inflicted another severe defeat to the royal Neapolitan army
on the Volturno. The Sardinian advance was wholly unimpeded.
… On November 7 the king entered Naples, and on the
following day was waited upon by a deputation to announce the
result of the election that Garibaldi had previously decreed.
'Sire,' said their spokesman, 'The Neapolitan people,
assembled in Comitia, by an immense majority have proclaimed
you their king.' … Then followed an event so sublime as to
be without parallel in these times of selfish ambition.
Garibaldi bade farewell to his faithful followers, and,
refusing all rewards, passed again to his quiet home in
Caprera. … The people of Umbria and the Marches followed the
lead of Naples in declaring themselves subjects of Victor
Emmanuel. Except for the patrimony of St. Peter surrounding
the city of Rome and the Austrian province of Venetia, Italy
was united under the tricolor. While Garibaldi returned to his
humble life, Cavour went to Turin to resume his labors. … On
the 18th of February, 1861, the first national parliament
representing the north and south met at Turin. Five days
before, the last stronghold of Francis II. had capitulated,
and the enthusiasm ran high. The kingdom of Italy was
proclaimed, and the king confirmed as 'Victor Emmanuel II., by
the grace of God and the will of the nation King of Italy.'
… The work was almost done. The scheme that a few years
before would have provoked a smile in any diplomatic circle in
Europe had been perfected almost to the capstone. But the man
who had conceived the plan and carried it through its darkest
days was, not destined to witness its final consummation.
Cavour was giving way. On May 29 he was stricken down with a
violent illness." On June 6 he died. "To Mazzini belongs the
credit of keeping alive the spirit of patriotism; Garibaldi is
entitled to the admiration of the world as the pure patriot
who fired men's souls; but Cavour was greater than either, and
Mazzini and Garibaldi were but humble instruments in his
magnificent plan of Italian regeneration."
H. Murdock,
The Reconstruction of Europe,
chapter 13.
ALSO IN:
C. de Mazade,
Life of Count Cavour,
chapters 5-7.
G. Garibaldi,
Autobiography,
3d period (volume 2).
E. Dicey,
Victor Emmanuel,
chapters 27-34.
E. About,
The Roman Question.
The Chevalier O'Clery,
The Making of Italy,
chapters 7-12.
{1867}
ITALY: A. D. 1862-1866.
The Roman question and the Venetian question.
Impatience of the nation.
Collision of Garibaldi with the government.
Alliance with Prussia.
War with Austria.
Liberation and annexation of Venetia.
"The new ministry was formed by Baron Ricasoli. … In the
month of July, Russia and Prussia followed the example of
England and France, and acknowledged Italian unity. … Baron
Ricasoli only held office about nine months; not feeling equal
to the difficulties he had to encounter, he resigned in March,
1862, and Signor Ratazzi was empowered to form a new ministry.
… The volunteer troops had become a source of serious
embarrassment to the government. … It was found disagreeable
and dangerous to have two standing armies under separate heads
and a separate discipline, and it was proposed to amalgamate
the Garibaldians with the royal troops. Endless disagreements
arose out of this question. … As soon as this question was
in a manner accommodated, a more serious one arose. The
central provinces lost all patience in waiting so long for a
peaceful solution of the Roman question. The leaders of the
Young Italy party became more warlike in their language, and
excited the peasantry to riotous proceedings, which the
government had to put down forcibly, and this disagreeable
fact helped to make the Ratazzi ministry unpopular.
Garibaldi's name had been used as an incentive to those
disturbances, and now the hot-headed general embarked for
Sicily, to take the command of a troop who were bound for the
Eternal City, resolved to cut with the sword the Gordian knot
of the Roman question. The government used energetic measures
to maintain its dignity, and not allow an irregular warfare to
be carried on without its sanction. The times were difficult,
no doubt, and the ministry had a hard road to tread. … The
Garibaldians were already in the field, and having crossed
from Sicily, were marching through Calabria with
ever-increasing forces and the cry of 'Rome or death' on their
lips. Victor Emmanuel had now no choice left him but to put
down rebellion by force of arms. General Cialdini's painful
duty it was to lead the royal troops on this occasion. He
encountered the Garibaldians at Aspromonte, in Calabria, and
on their refusing to surrender to the king, a fight ensued in
which the volunteers were of course defeated, and their
officers arrested. Garibaldi, with a ball in his foot, from
the effects of which he has never recovered, was carried a
state prisoner to Piedmont. … This unhappy episode was a
bitter grief to Victor Emmanuel. … Aspromonte gave a final
blow to the Ratazzi ministry. Never very popular, it was
utterly shaken by the reaction in favour of Garibaldi. …
After a good deal of worry and consultation, the king decided
to call Luigi Carlo Farini to office. … Unhappily his health
obliged him to retire very soon from public life, and he was
succeeded by Minghetti. On the whole this first year without
Cavour had been a very trying one to Victor Emmanuel. …
Meantime the Roman question remained in abeyance—to the great
detriment of the nation, for it kept Central and Southern
Italy in a state of fermentation which the government could
not long hold in check. The Bourbon intrigues at Rome,
encouraging brigandage in the Two Sicilies, destroyed all
security of life and property, and impeded foreigners from
visiting the country. The Emperor of the French, occupying the
false position of champion of Italian independence and
protector of the temporal power of the Pope, would not do
anything, nor let the Italian Government do anything, towards
settling the momentous question. … Victor Emmanuel, who had
his eye on Venice all the time, having a fixed impression that
if it could be recovered he would find less difficulty in
getting rid of the foreign occupation in Rome, now adopted
energetic measures to bring about a settlement of this
Venetian question, urging the English Government to use its
influence with Austria to induce her to accept some compromise
and surrender the Italian province peaceably. … Meantime the
Italian Government continued to invite the French to withdraw
their forces from the Roman States, and leave the Pope face to
face with his own subjects without the aid of foreign
bayonets. This the emperor, fearing to offend the papal party,
could not make up his mind to do. But to make the road to Rome
easier for the Italians, he proposed a transfer of the capital
from Turin to some more southern town, Florence or Naples—he
did not care which. The French minister, M. Drouyn de Lhuys,
said:—'Of course in the end you will go to Rome. But it is
important that between our evacuation and your going there,
such an interval of time and such a series of events should
elapse as to prevent people establishing any connection
between the two facts. France must not have any
responsibility.' … The king accepted the conditions, which
provided that the French were to evacuate Rome in two years,
and fixed on Florence as the residence of the court. … On
November 18, 1860, the first Parliament was opened in
Florence. … The quarrel between Austria and Prussia [see
GERMANY: A. D. 1861-1866] was growing all this time, and Italy
proposed an alliance defensive and offensive with the latter
power. … The treaty was concluded April 8, 1866. When this
fact became known, Austria, on the brink of war with Prussia,
began to think that she must rid herself in some way of the
worry of the Italians on her southern frontier, in order to be
free to combat her powerful northern enemy. The cabinet of
Vienna did not apply directly to the cabinet of Florence, but
to that arbiter of the destinies of nations, Napoleon III.,
proposing to cede Venetia on condition that the Italian
government should detach itself from the Prussian alliance.
… After an ineffectual attempt to accommodate matters by a
congress, war was declared against Austria, on June 20, 1866,
and La Marmora, having appointed Ricasoli as his deputy at the
head of the council, led the army northwards. … Victor
Emmanuel appointed his cousin regent, and carried his sons
along with him to the seat of war. … The forces of Austria
were led by the able and experienced commander, the Archduke
Albert, who had distinguished himself at Novara. On the
ill-omened field of Custozza, where the Italians had been
defeated in 1849, the opposing armies met [June 24]; and both
being in good condition, well disciplined and brave, there was
fought a prolonged and bloody battle, in which the Italians
were worsted, but not routed. … On July 20 the Italian navy
suffered an overwhelming defeat at Lissa in the Adriatic, and
these two great misfortunes plunged Victor Emmanuel into the
deepest grief. He felt disabled from continuing the war: all
the sacrifice of life had been in vain: national unity was as
far off as ever. … Meantime the Prussian arms were
everywhere victorious over Austria, and about ten days after
the battle of Custozza it was announced in the Moniteur that
Austria had asked the Emperor Napoleon's mediation, offering
to cede him Venice, and that he was making over that province
to the King of Italy.
{1868}
Italy could not accept it without the consent of her ally
Prussia; and while negotiations were going forward on the
subject, the brief seven weeks' campaign was brought to a
conclusion by the great victory of Sadowa, and on July 26 the
preliminaries of peace were signed by the Austrian and
Prussian plenipotentiaries. … Venice was restored to Italy
by the Emperor of France, with the approval of Prussia. There
was a sting in the thought that it was not wrung from the
talons of the Austrian eagle by the valour of Italian arms,
but by the force of diplomacy; still it was a delightful fact
that Venice was free, with the tricolour waving on St. Mark's.
The Italian soil was delivered from foreign occupation. … As
soon as the treaty was signed at Vienna, October 2, the
Venetian Assemblies unanimously elected Victor Emmanuel with
acclamations, and begged for immediate annexation to the
Kingdom of Italy. On November 4, in the city of Turin, Victor
Emmanuel received the deputation which came to proffer him the
homage of the inhabitants of Venetia. … On November 7 Victor
Emmanuel made a solemn entry into the most beautiful, and,
after Rome, the most interesting city of the Italian
peninsula. … Hot upon the settlement of the Venetian
question, came the discussion of that of Rome, which after the
evacuation of the French troops [November, 1866] seemed more
complicated than ever. The Catholic powers were now anxious to
accommodate the quarrel between Italy and the Pope, and they
offered to guarantee him his income and his independence if he
would reconcile himself to the national will. But Pius IX. was
immovable in his determination to oppose it to the last."
G. S. Godkin,
Life of Victor Emmanuel II.,
chapters 23-25 (volume 2).
ALSO IN:
J. W. Probyn,
Italy from 1815 to 1890,
chapter 11.
G. Garibaldi,
Autobiography,
4th period, chapter 1 (volume 2),
and volume 3, chapter 8.
ITALY: A. D. 1867-1870.
Settlement of the Roman question.
Defeat of Garibaldi at Mentana.
Rome in the possession of the king of Italy.
Progress made by diplomacy in the settlement of the Roman
question "was too slow for Garibaldi. He had once more fallen
under the influence of the extreme republicans, and in 1867 he
declared that he would delay no longer in planting the
republican banner on the Vatican. Between these hot-headed and
fanatical republicans on the one side, the Italian
Ultramontanes on another, and the French Emperor on the third,
the position of Victor Emmanuel was anything but enviable. In
the autumn of 1867 Garibaldi was suddenly arrested by the
Government, but released on condition that he would remain
quietly at Caprera. But meanwhile the volunteers under Menotti
Garibaldi (the great chief's son) had advanced into the Papal
States. The old warrior was burning to be with them. On the
14th of October he effected his escape from Caprera, and
managed eventually to join his son in the Romagna. Together
they advanced on Rome, and won, after tremendous fighting, the
great victory at Monte Rotundo. Meanwhile an army of
occupation sent by the Government from Florence had crossed
the Roman frontier, and a French force had landed on the
coast. Garibaldi's position was already critical, but his
resolution was unbroken. 'The Government of Florence,' he
said, in a proclamation to the volunteers, 'has invaded the
Roman territory, already won by us with precious blood from
the enemies of Italy; we ought to receive our brothers in arms
with love, and aid them in driving out of Rome the mercenary
sustainers of tyranny; but if base deeds, the continuation of
the vile convention of September, in mean consort with
Jesuitism, shall urge us to lay down our arms in obedience to
the order of the 2d December, then will I let the world know
that I alone, a Roman general, with full power, elected by the
universal suffrage of the only legal Government in Rome, that
of the republic, have the right to maintain myself in arms in
this the territory subject to my jurisdiction; and then, if
any of these my volunteers, champions of liberty and Italian
unity, wish to have Rome as the capital of Italy, fulfilling
the vote of parliament and the nation, they must not put down
their arms until Italy shall have acquired liberty of
conscience and worship, built upon the ruin of Jesuitism, and
until the soldiers of tyrants shall be banished from our
land.' The position taken up by Garibaldi is perfectly
intelligible. Rome we must have, if possible, by legal
process, in conjunction with the royal arms'; but if they will
stand aside, even if they will oppose, none the less Rome must
be annexed to Italy. Unfortunately Garibaldi had left out of
account the French force despatched by Napoleon III. to defend
the Temporal dominions of the Pope, a force which even at this
moment was advancing to the attack. The two armies met near
the little village of Mentana, ill matched in every respect.
The volunteers, numerous indeed but ill disciplined and badly
armed, brought together, held together simply by the magic of
a name, the French, admirably disciplined, armed with the
fatal chassepots, fighting the battle of their ancient Church.
The Garibaldians were terribly defeated. Victor Emmanuel
grieved bitterly, like a true, warm-hearted father for the
fate of his misguided but generous-hearted sons. … To the
Emperor of the French he wrote an ardent appeal begging him to
break with the Clericals and put himself at the head of the
Liberal party in Europe, at the same time warning him that the
old feeling of gratitude towards the French in Italy had quite
disappeared. 'The late events have suffocated every
remembrance of gratitude in the heart of Italy. It is no
longer in the power of the Government to maintain the alliance
with France. The chassepot gun at Mentana has given it a
mortal blow.' At the same time the rebels were visited with
condign punishment. Garibaldi himself was arrested, but after
a brief imprisonment at Varignano was permitted to retire once
more to Caprera. A prisoner so big as Garibaldi is always an
embarrassment to gaolers. But the last act in the great drama
… was near at hand. In 1870 the Franco-German War broke out.
The contest, involving as it did the most momentous
consequences, was as brief as it was decisive. The French, of
course, could no longer maintain their position as champions
of the Temporal power. Once more, therefore, the King of Italy
attempted, with all the earnestness and with all the
tenderness at his command, to induce the Pope to come to terms
and accept the position, at once dignified and independent,
which the Italian Government was anxious to secure to him. …
{1869}
But the Pope still unflinchingly adhered to the position he
had taken up. … A feint of resistance was made, but on the
20th of September (1870) the royal troops entered Rome, and
the Tricolour was mounted on the palace of the Capitol. So
soon as might be a plebiscite was taken. The numbers are
significant—for the King, 40,788, for the Pope, 46. But
though the work was thus accomplished in the autumn of 1870,
it was not until 2d June 1871 that the King made his triumphal
entry into the capital of Italy."
J. A. R. Marriott,
The Makers of Modern Italy,
pages 72-76.
ALSO IN:
G. Garibaldi,
Autobiography,
volume 3, chapters 8-9.
G. S. Godkin,
Life of Victor Emmanuel,
chapter 32 (volume 2).
ITALY: A. D. 1870-1894.
The tasks and burdens of the United Nation.
Military and colonial ambitions.
The Triple Alliance.
"Italy now [In 1870] stood before the world as a nation of
twenty-five million inhabitants, her frontiers well defined,
her needs very evident. Nevertheless, if her national
existence was to be more than a name, she must have discipline
in self-government, and she must as quickly as possible
acquire the tools and methods of the civilization prevailing
among those nations into whose company her victories had
raised her. Two thirds of her people lagged behind the Western
world not only in material inventions, but in education and
civic training. Railroads and telegraphs, the wider
application of steam to industries, schools, courts, the
police, had all to be provided, and provided quickly.
Improvements which England and France had added gradually and
paid for gradually, Italy had to organize and pay for in a few
years. Hence a levying of heavy taxes, and exorbitant
borrowing from the future in the public debt. Not only this,
but ancient traditions, the memories of feuds between town and
town, had to be obliterated; the people had to be made truly
one people, so that Venetians, or Neapolitans, or Sicilians
should each feel that they were first of all Italians.
National uniformity must supplant provincial peculiarity;
there must be one language, one code of laws, one common
interest; in a word, the new nation must be Italianized. The
ease and rapidity with which the Italians have progressed in
all these respects have no parallel in modern times. Though
immense the undertaking, they have, in performing it, revealed
an adaptability to new conditions, a power of transformation
which are among the most remarkable characteristics of their
race, and the strongest proofs that ruin will not now engulf
them. Only a race incapable of readjusting itself need
despair. Happy had Italy been if, undistracted by temptation,
she had pursued the plain course before her; still happy, had
she resisted such temptation. But nations, like individuals,
are not made all of one piece: they, too, acknowledge the
better reason, but follow the worse; they, too, through pride
or vanity or passion, often forfeit the winnings from years of
toil. … Italy was recognized as a great power by her
neighbors, and she willingly persuaded herself that it was her
duty to do what they did. In this civilized age, the first
requisite of a great power is a large standing army. … A
large standing army being the first condition of ranking among
the great powers, Italy set about preparing one. … Perhaps
more than any other European nation she was excusable in
desiring to show that her citizens could become soldiers, for
she had been taunted time out of mind with her effeminacy, her
cowardice. It might be argued, too, that she received a larger
dividend in indirect compensation for her capital invested in
the army than her neighbors received from theirs. Uniform
military service helped to blot out provincial lines and to
Italianize all sections; it also furnished rudimentary
education to the vast body of illiterate conscripts. These
ends might have been reached at far less cost by direct and
natural means; but this fact should not lessen the credit due
to the Italian military system for furthering them. Tradition,
example, national sensitiveness, all conspired in this way to
persuade Italy to saddle an immense army on her back. … One
evidence of being a 'great power,' according to the political
standard of the time, consists in ability to establish
colonies, or at least a protectorate, in distant lands;
therefore Italian Jingoes goaded their government on to plant
the Italian flag in Africa. France was already mistress of
Algiers; Spain held a lien on Morocco; Italy could accordingly
do no less than spread her influence over Tunis. For a few
years Italy complacently imagined that she was as good as her
rivals in the possession of a foreign dependency. Then a
sudden recrudescence of Jingoism in France caused the French
to occupy Tunis. The Italians were very angry; but when they
sounded the situation, they realized that it would be folly to
go to war over it. … Not warned by this experience, Italy, a
few years later, plunged yet more deeply into the uncertain
policy of colonization. England and France having fallen out
over the control of Egypt, then England, having virtually made
the Khedive her vassal, suggested that it would be a very fine
thing for Italy to establish a colony far down on the coast of
the Red Sea, whence she could command the trade of Abyssinia.
Italian Jingoes jumped at the suggestion, and for ten years
the red-white-and-green flag has waved over Massaua. But the
good that Italy has derived from this acquisition has yet to
appear. … Equally slow have they been to learn that their
partnership in the Triple Alliance [see TRIPLE ALLIANCE] has
entailed upon them sacrifices out of all proportion to the
benefits. To associate on apparently even terms with Germany
and Austria was doubtless gratifying to national vanity, …
but who can show that Italy has been more secure from attack
since she entered that league than she was before? … For the
sake … of a delusive honor,—the honor of posing as the
partner of the arbiters of Europe,—Italy has, since 1882,
seen her army and her debt increase, and her resources
proportionately diminish. None of her ministers has had the
courage to suggest quitting a ruinous policy; on the contrary,
they have sought hither and thither to find means to
perpetuate it without actually breaking the country's back.
… Yet not on this account shall we despair of a country
which, in spite of folly, has achieved much against great
odds, and which has shown a wonderful capacity for sloughing
off her past. Hardship itself, though it be the penalty of
error, may, by restricting her ability to go astray, lead her
back to the path of reason."
W. R. Thayer,
Some Causes of the Italian Crisis
(Atlantic, April, 1894).
See, also, IRREDENTISTS.
{1670}
ITHACA.
One of the seven Ionian islands, small and unimportant, but
interesting as being the Homeric island-kingdom of
Ulysses—the principal scene of the story of the Odyssey. The
island has been more or less explored, with a view to
identifying the localities mentioned in the epic, by Sir
William Gell, by Colonel Leake, and by Dr. Schliemann. Some
account of the latter's work and its results is given in the
introduction to his "Ilios."
E. H. Bunbury,
History of Ancient Geography,
chapter 3, note I (volume 1).
ITHOME.
See SPARTA: B. C. 743-510;
also, MESSENIAN WAR, THE THIRD.
ITOCOS, The.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: CHIBCHAS.
ITONOMOS, The.
See BOLIVIA: THE ABORIGINAL INHABITANTS;
also, AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ANDESIANS.
ITURBIDE, Empire of.
See MEXICO: A. D. 1820-1826.
ITUZAINGO, Battle of (1827).
See ARGENTINE REPUBLIC: A. D. 1819-1874.
IUKA, Battle of.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1862 (SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER: MISSISSIPPI).
IVAN I.,
Grand Prince of Moscow, A. D. 1328-1340.
Ivan II., Grand Prince of Moscow, 1352-1359.
Ivan III. (called The Great), the first Czar of Muscovy, of
Russia, 1462-1505.
See RUSSIA: A. D. 1237-1480.
Ivan IV. (called The Terrible), Czar of Russia, 1533-1584.
See RUSSIA: A. D. 1533-1682.
Ivan V., Czar of Russia, 1682-1689.
Ivan VI., Czar of Russia, 1740-1741.
IVERNI, The.
See IRELAND, TRIBES OF EARLY CELTIC INHABITANTS.
IVRY, Battle of (1590).
See FRANCE: A. D. 1589-1590.
IVY LANE CLUB, The.
See CLUBS, DR. JOHNSON'S.
J.
JACK CADE'S REBELLION.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1450.
JACK'S LAND.
See NO MAN'S LAND (ENGLAND).
JACKSON, ANDREW.
Campaign against the Creek Indians.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1813-1814 (AUGUST-APRIL).
JACKSON, ANDREW.
Victory at New Orleans.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1815 (JANUARY).
JACKSON, ANDREW.
Campaign in Florida.
See FLORIDA: A. D. 1816-1818.
JACKSON, ANDREW.
Presidential election and administration.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1828, to 1837.
JACKSON, STONEWALL (General Thomas J.)
At the first Battle of Bull Run.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (JULY: VIRGINIA).
JACKSON, STONEWALL
First campaign in the Shenandoah.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1861-1862 (DECEMBER-APRIL: VIRGINIA).
JACKSON, STONEWALL
Second campaign in the Shenandoah.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1862 (MAY-JUNE: VIRGINIA).
JACKSON, STONEWALL
Peninsular campaign.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1862 (JUNE-JULY: VIRGINIA).
JACKSON, STONEWALL
Last flank movement.
Death.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1863 (APRIL-MAY: VIRGINIA).
JACKSON, Mississippi: A. D. 1863.
Capture and recapture by the Union forces.
Sack and ruin.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1863 (APRIL-JULY: ON THE MISSISSIPPI);
and (JULY: MISSISSIPPI).
JACOBIN CLUBS.
JACOBINS, The.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1790, to 1794-1795 (JULY-APRIL).
JACOBITE CHURCH, The.
The great religious dispute of the 5th century, concerning the
single or the double nature of Christ, as God and as man,
left, in the end, two extreme parties, the Monophysites and
the Nestorians, exposed alike to the persecutions of the
orthodox church, as established in its faith by the Council of
Chalcedon, by the Roman Pope and by the emperors Justin and
Justinian. The Monophysite party, strongest in Syria, was
threatened with extinction; but a monk named James, or
Jacobus, Baradæus—"Al Baradai," "the man in rags,"—imparted
new life to it by his zeal and activity, and its members
acquired from him the name of Jacobites. Amida (now Diarbekir)
on the Tigris became the seat of the Jacobite patriarchs and
remains so to this day. Abulpharagius, the oriental historian
of the 13th century, was their most distinguished scholar, and
held the office of Mafrian or vice-patriarch, so to speak, of
the East. Their communities are mostly confined at present to
the region of the Euphrates and the Tigris, and number less
than 200,000 souls.
H. F. Tozer,
The Church and the Eastern Empire,
chapter 5.
See NESTORIAN AND MONOPHYSITE CONTROVERSY.
JACOBITES.
After the revolution of 1688 in England, which expelled James
II. from the throne, his partisans, who wished to restore him,
were called Jacobites, an appellation derived from the Latin
form of his name—Jacobus. The name adhered after James' death
to the party which maintained the rights of his son and
grandson, James Stuart and Charles Edward, the "Old
Pretender" and the "Young Pretender," as they were
respectively called.
See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1707-1708.
The Jacobites rose twice in rebellion.
See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1715;
and 1745-1746.
JACQUERIE, The Insurrection of the.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1358.
----------JAFFA: Start--------
JAFFA (ANCIENT JOPPA): A. D. 1196-1197.
Taken and retaken by the German Crusaders.
See CRUSADES: A. D. 1196-1197.
JAFFA: A. D. 1799.
Capture by Bonaparte.
Massacre of prisoners.
Reported poisoning of the sick.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1798-1799 (AUGUST-AUGUST).
----------JAFFA: End--------
JAGELLONS, The dynasty of the.
See POLAND: A. D. 1333-1572.
JAGIR.
"A jagir [in India] is, literally, land given by a government
as a reward for services rendered."
G. B. Malleson,
Lord Clive,
page 123, foot-note.
JAHANGIR (Salim),
Moghul Emperor or Padischah of India, A. D. 1605-1627.
JAINISM.
JAINS.
See INDIA: B. C. 312
JAITCHE, DEFENSE OF (1527).
See BALKAN AND DANUBIAN STATES:
9TH-16TH CENTURIES (BOSNIA, ETC.).
JALALÆAN ERA.
See TURKS (THE SELJUK): A. D. 1073-1092.
{1871}
JALULA, Battle of.
One of the battles in which the Arabs, under the first
successors of Mahomet, conquered the Persian empire. Fought A.
D. 637.
G. Rawlinson,
Seventh Great Oriental Monarchy,
chapter 26.
See MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 632-651.
----------JAMAICA: Start--------
JAMAICA: A. D. 1494.
Discovery by Columbus.
See AMERICA: A. D. 1493-1496.
JAMAICA: A. D. 1509.
Granted to Ojeda and Nicuesa.
See AMERICA: A. D. 1509-1511.
JAMAICA: A. D. 1655
The English conquest and colonization.
In the spring of 1655, having determined upon an alliance with
France and war with Spain, Cromwell fitted out an expedition
under admirals Venables and Pen, secretly commissioned to
attack Cuba and St. Domingo. Frustrated in an attempt against
the latter island, the expedition made a descent on the island
of Jamaica with better success. "This great gain was yet held
insufficient to balance the first defeat; and on the return of
Pen and Venables they were both committed to the Tower. I may
pause for an instant here to notice a sound example of
Cromwell's far-seeing sagacity. Though men scouted in that day
the acquisition of Jamaica, he saw its value in itself, and
its importance in relation to future attempts on the continent
of America. Exerting the inhuman power of a
despot—occasionally, as hurricanes and other horrors,
necessary for the purification of the world—he ordered his
son Henry to seize on 1,000 young girls in Ireland and send
them over to Jamaica, for the purpose of increasing population
there. A year later, and while the Italian Sagredo was in
London, he issued an order that all females of disorderly
lives should be arrested and shipped for Barbadoes for the
like purpose. Twelve hundred were accordingly sent in three
ships."
J. Forster,
Statesmen of the Commonwealth: Cromwell.
ALSO IN:
G. Penn,
Memorials of Sir Wm. Penn, Admiral,
volume 2, page 124, and appendix H.
See, also, ENGLAND: A. D. 1655-1658.
JAMAICA: A. D. 1655-1796.
Development of the British colony.
The Buccaneers.
The Maroon wars.
"Cromwell set himself to maintain and develop his new
conquest. He issued a proclamation encouraging trade and
settlement in the island by exemption from taxes. In order to
'people and plant' it, he ordered an equal number of young men
and women to be sent over from Ireland, he instructed the
Scotch government to apprehend and transport the idle and
vagrant, and he sent agents to the New England colonies and
the other West Indian islands in order to attract settlers.
After the first three or four years this policy of encouraging
emigration, continued in spite of the Protector's death, bore
due fruit, and Jamaica became to a singular extent a
receptacle for the most varied types of settlers, for freemen
as well as for political offenders or criminals from Newgate,
and for immigrants from the colonies as well as from the
mother country. … The death of Cromwell brought over
adherents of the Parliamentary party, ill content with the
restoration of the Stuarts; the evacuation of Surinam in
favour of the Dutch brought in a contingent of planters in
1675; the survivors of the ill-fated Scotch colony at Darien
came over in 1699; and the Rye House Plot, Sedgmoor, and the
risings of 1715 and 1745 all contributed to the population of
the island. Most of all, however, the buccaneers made Jamaica
great and prosperous. … Situated as the island was, well
inside the ring of the Spanish possessions, the English
occupation of Jamaica was a godsend to the buccaneers, while
their privateering trade was exactly suited to the restless
soldiers who formed the large bulk of the early colonists. So
Port Royal became in a few years a great emporium of
ill-gotten wealth, and the man who sacked Panama became Sir
Henry Morgan, Lieutenant-Governor of Jamaica. … In 1661
Charles II. sanctioned the beginnings of civil government. …
Municipal institutions were introduced, judges and magistrates
were appointed, land grants were issued, and the island began
to take the form and substance of an English colony. The
constitution thenceforward consisted of a Governor, a
nominated Council, and an elected Assembly; and the first
Assembly, consisting of 30 persons, met in January, 1664. …
It was not long before the representative body began to assert
its independence by opposition to the Crown, and in 1678 the
Home government invited conflict by trying to apply to Jamaica
the system which had been introduced into Ireland by the
notorious Poynings' law. Under this system no Assembly could
be summoned for legislative purposes except under special
directions from home, and its functions would have been
limited to registering consent to laws which had already been
put into approved shape in England." Conflict over this,
attempt to deal with Jamaica as "a conquered and tributary
dependency" did not end until 1728, when the colonists bought
relief from it by settling on the Crown an "irrevocable
revenue" of £8,000 per annum. "About the time when the
constitutional difficulty was settled, the Maroon question was
pressing itself more and more upon the attention of the
colonial government. The penalty which Jamaica paid for being
a large and mountainous island was, that it harboured in its
forests and ravines a body of men who, throughout its history
down to the present century, were a source of anxiety and
danger. The original Maroons, or mountaineers, for that is the
real meaning of the term, were … the slaves of Spaniards who
retreated into the interior when the English took the island,
and sallied out from time to time to harass the invaders and
cut off stragglers and detached parties. … Maroon or Maron
is an abbreviation of Cimaron, and is derived from the Spanish
or Portuguese 'Cima,' or mountain top. Skeat points out that
the word is probably of Portuguese origin, the 'C' having been
pronounced as 'S.' Benzoni (edited by the Hakluyt Society),
who wrote about 1565, speaks of 'Cimaroui' as being the
Spanish name for outlawed slaves in Hispaniola. … It is
probable that the danger would have been greater if the
outlaws had been a united band, but there were divisions of
race and origin among them. The Maroons proper, the slaves of
the Spaniards and their descendants, were mainly in the east
of the island among the Blue Mountains, while the mountains of
the central district were the refuge of runaways from English
masters, including Africans of different races, as well as
Madagascars or Malays. Towards the end of the seventeenth
century the newer fugitives had found in a negro named Cudjoe
an able and determined leader, and thenceforward the
resistance to the government became more organised and
systematic. …
{1872}
Finally, in 1738, Governor Trelawny made overtures of peace to
the rebels, which were accepted. … By this treaty the
freedom of the negroes was guaranteed, special reserves were
assigned to them, they were left under the rule of their own
captains assisted by white superintendents, but were bound
over to help the government against foreign invasion from
without and slave rebellions from within. A similar treaty was
made with the eastern Maroons, and the whole of these blacks,
some 600 in number, were established in five settlements. …
Under these conditions the Maroons gave little trouble till
the end of the 18th century. … The last Maroon war occurred
in 1795." When the insurgent Maroons surrendered, the next
year, they were, in violation of the terms made with them,
transported to Nova Scotia, and afterwards to the warmer
climate of Sierra Leone. "Thus ended the last Maroon
rebellion; but … it affected only one section of these negro
freemen, and even their descendants returned in many cases to
Jamaica at a later date."
C. P. Lucas,
Historical Geography of the British Colonies,
volume 2, section 2, chapter 3, with foot-note.
ALSO IN:
G. W. Bridges,
Annals of Jamaica,
volume 1, and volume 2, chapters 1-16.
R. C. Dallas,
History of the Maroons.
JAMAICA: A. D. 1689-1762.
The English slave trade.
See SLAVERY, NEGRO: A. D. 1698-1776.
JAMAICA: A. D. 1692.
Destructive Earthquake.
"An earthquake of terrible violence laid waste in less than
three minutes the flourishing colony of Jamaica. Whole
plantations changed their place. Whole villages were swallowed
up. Port Royal, the fairest and wealthiest city which the
English had yet built in the New World, renowned for its
quays, for its warehouses, and for its stately streets, which
were said to rival Cheapside, was turned into a mass of ruins.
Fifteen hundred of the inhabitants were buried under their own
dwellings."
Lord Macaulay,
History of England,
chapter 19 (volume 4).
JAMAICA: A. D. 1834-1838.
Emancipation of Slaves.
See SLAVERY, NEGRO: A. D. 1834-1838.
JAMAICA: A. D. 1865.
Governor Eyre's suppression of Insurrection.
In October, 1865, there occurred an insurrection among the
colored people of one district of Jamaica, the suppression of
which throws "a not altogether pleasant light upon English
methods, when applied to the government of a subject race. …
The disturbances were confined to the district and parish of
St. Thomas in the East. There were local grievances arising
from a dispute between Mr. Gordon, a native [colored]
proprietor, and Baron Ketelholdt, the custos of the parish.
Mr. Gordon, a dissenter, and apparently a reformer of abuses
and unpopular among his fellows, had been deprived of his
place among the magistrates, and prevented from filling the
office of churchwarden to which he was elected. The expenses
of the suits against him had been defrayed from the public
purse. The native Baptists, the sect to which he belonged,
were angry with what they regarded as at once an act of
persecution and a misappropriation of the public money.
Indignation meetings had been held. … Behind this quarrel,
which would not of itself have produced much result, there lay
more general grievances. … There was a real grievance in the
difficulty of obtaining redress through law administered
entirely by landlords; and as a natural consequence there had
grown up a strong mistrust of the law itself, and a complete
alienation between the employer and the employed. To this was
added a feeling on the part of the class above the ordinary
labourer, known as the free settlers, that they were unduly
rented, and obliged to pay rent for land which they should
have held free; and there was a very general though vague
expectation that in some way or other the occupiers would be
freed from the payment of rent. The insurrection broke out in
October;" a small riot, at first, at Morant Bay, in which a
policeman was beaten; then an attempt to arrest one of the
alleged rioters, a colored preacher, Paul Bogle by name, and a
formidable resistance to the attempt by 400 of his friends.
"On the next day, when the Magistrates and Vestry were
assembled in the Court-House at Morant Bay, a crowd of
insurgents made their appearance, the volunteers were called
out, and the Riot Act read; and after a skirmish the
Court-House was taken and burnt, 18 of the defenders killed
and 30 wounded. The jail was broken open and several stores
sacked. There was some evidence that the rising was
premeditated, and that a good deal of drilling had been going
on among the blacks under the command of Bogle. From Morant
Bay armed parties of the insurgents passed inland through the
country attacking the plantations, driving the inhabitants to
take refuge in the bush, and putting some of the whites to
death. The Governor of the Island at the time was Mr. Eyre
[former explorer of Australia]. He at once summoned his Privy
Council, and with their advice declared martial law over the
county of Surrey, With the exception of the town of Kingston.
Bodies of troops were also at once despatched to surround the
insurgent district. … 439 persons fell victims to summary
punishment, and not less than 1,000 dwellings were burnt;
besides which, it would appear that at least 600 men and women
were subjected to flogging, in some instances with
circumstances of unusual cruelty. But the event which chiefly
fixed the attention of the public in England was the summary
conviction and execution of Mr. Gordon. He was undoubtedly a
troublesome person, and there were circumstances raising a
suspicion that he possessed a guilty knowledge of the intended
insurrection. They were however far too slight to have secured
his conviction before a Court of Law. But Governor Eyre caused
him to be arrested in Kingston, where martial law did not
exist, hurried on board ship and carried to Morant Bay, within
the proclaimed district. He was there tried by a
court-martial, consisting of three young officers," was
sentenced to death, and immediately hanged.
J. F. Bright,
History of England: period 4,
pages 413-415.
"When the story reached England, in clear and trustworthy
form, two antagonistic parties were instantly formed. The
extreme on the one side glorified Governor Eyre, and held that
by his prompt action he had saved the white population of
Jamaica from all the horrors of triumphant negro insurrection.
The extreme on the other side denounced him as a mere fiend.
The majority on both sides were more reasonable; but the
difference between them was only less wide. An association
called the Jamaica Committee was formed for the avowed purpose
of seeing that justice was done. It comprised some of the most
illustrious Englishmen. …
{1873}

Another association was founded, on the opposite side, for the
purpose of sustaining Governor Eyre; and it must be owned that
it too had great names. Mr. Mill may be said to have led the
one side, and Mr. Carlyle the other. The natural bent of each
man's genius and temper turned him to the side of the Jamaica
negroes, or of the Jamaica Governor. Mr. Tennyson, Mr.
Kingsley, Mr. Ruskin, followed Mr. Carlyle; we know now that
Mr. Dickens was of the same way of thinking. Mr. Herbert
Spencer, Professor Huxley, Mr. Goldwin Smith, were in
agreement with Mr. Mill. … No one needs to be told that Mr.
Bright took the side of the oppressed, and Mr. Disraeli that
of authority." A Commission of Inquiry sent out to investigate
the whole matter, reported in April, 1866, commending the
vigorous promptitude with which Governor Eyre had dealt with
the disturbances at the beginning, but condemning the
brutalities which followed, under cover of martial law, and
especially the infamous execution of Gordon. The Jamaica
Committee made repeated efforts to bring Governor Eyre's
conduct to judicial trial; but without success. "The bills of
indictment never got beyond the grand jury stage. The grand
jury always threw them out. On one memorable occasion the
attempt gave the Lord Chief Justice [Cockburn] of England an
opportunity of delivering … to the grand jury … a charge
entitled to the rank of a historical declaration of the law of
England, and the limits of the military power even in cases of
insurrection."
J. McCarthy,
History of Our Own Times,
chapter 49 (volume 4).
ALSO IN:
G. B. Smith,
Life and Speeches of John Bright,
volume 2, chapter 5.
W. F. Finlason,
History of the Jamaica Case.
----------JAMAICA: End----------
JAMES I.,
King of Aragon, A. D. 1213-1276.
James I., King of England, A. D. 1603-1625
(he being, also, James VI., King of Scotland, 1567-1625).
James I., King of Scotland, 1406-1437.
James II., King of Aragon, 1291-1327;
King of Sicily, 1285-1295.
James II:, King of England, 1685-1689.
James II., King of Scotland, 1437-1460.
James III., King of Scotland, 1460-1488.
James IV., King of Scotland, 1488-1513.
James V., King of Scotland, 1513-1542.
JAMES ISLAND, Battle on.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1863 (JULY: SOUTH CAROLINA).
JAMESTOWN, Virginia: A. D. 1607-1610.
The founding of the colony.
See VIRGINIA: A. D. 1606-1607; and 1607-1610.
JAMNIA, Battle of.
A defeat by Gorgias, the Syrian general, of part of the army
of Judas Maccabæus which he left under his generals Joseph and
Azarius, B. C. 164.
Josephus,
Antiquity of the Jews,
book 12, chapter 8.
JAMNIA, The School of.
A famous school of Jewish theology, established by Jochanan,
who escaped from Jerusalem during the siege by Titus.
H. Graetz,
History of the Jews,
volume 2, page 327.
JANICULUM, The.
See LATIUM, and VATICAN.
JANISSARIES, Creation and destruction of the.
See TURKS: A. D. 1326-1359; and 1826.
JANKOWITZ, Battle of (1645).
See GERMANY: A. D. 1640-1645.
JANSENISTS, The.
See PORT ROYAL AND THE JANSENISTS.
JANUS, The Temple of.
See TEMPLE OF JANUS.
----------JAPAN: Start----------
JAPAN:
Sketch of history to 1869.
"To the eye of the critical investigator, Japanese history,
properly so-called, opens only in the latter part of the 5th
or the beginning of the 6th century after Christ, when the
gradual spread of Chinese culture, filtering in through Korea,
had sufficiently dispelled the gloom of original barbarism to
allow of the keeping of records. The whole question of the
credibility of the early history of Japan has been carefully
gone into during the last ten years by Aston and others, with
the result that the first date pronounced trustworthy is A. D.
461, and it is discovered that even the annals of the 6th
century are to be received with caution. We have ourselves no
doubt of the justice of this negative criticism, and can only
stand in amazement at the simplicity of most European writers,
who have accepted without sifting them the uncritical
statements of the Japanese annalists. … Japanese art and
literature contain frequent allusions to the early history
(so-called) of the country … as preserved in the works
entitled Kojiki and Nihongi, both dating from the 8th century
after Christ. … We include the mythology under the same
heading, for the reason that it is absolutely impossible to
separate the two. Why, indeed, attempt to do so, where both
are equally fabulous? … Arrived at A. D. 600, we stand on
terra firma. … About that time occurred the greatest event
of Japanese history, the conversion of the nation to Buddhism
(approximately A. D. 552-621). So far as can be gathered from
the accounts of the early Chinese travellers, Chinese
civilisation had slowly—very slowly—been gaining ground in
the archipelago ever since the 3rd century after Christ. But
when the Buddhist missionaries crossed the water, all Chinese
institutions followed them and came in with a rush.
Mathematical instruments and calendars were introduced; books
began to be written (the earliest that has survived, and
indeed nearly the earliest of all, is the already mentioned
Kojiki, dating from A. D. 712); the custom of abdicating the
throne in order to spend old age in prayer was adopted—a
custom which, more than anything else, led to the effacement
of the Mikado's authority during the Middle Ages. Sweeping
changes in political arrangements began to be made in the year
645, and before the end of the 8th century, the government had
been entirely remodelled on the Chinese centralised
bureaucratic plan, with a regular system of ministers
responsible to the sovereign, who, as 'Son of Heaven,' was
theoretically absolute. In practice this absolutism lasted but
a short time, because the entourage and mode of life of the
Mikados were not such as to make of them able rulers. They
passed their time surrounded only by women and priests,
oscillating between indolence and debauchery, between
poetastering and gorgeous temple services. This was the
brilliant age of Japanese classical literature, which lived
and moved and had its being in the atmosphere of an effeminate
court. The Fujiwara family engrossed the power of the state
during this early epoch (A. D. 670-1050). While their sons
held all the great posts of government, the daughters were
married to puppet emperors. The next change resulted from the
impatience of the always manly and warlike Japanese gentry at
the sight of this sort of petticoat government.
{1874}
The great clans of Taira and Minamoto arose, and struggled for
and alternately held the reins of power during the second half
of the 11th and the whole of the 12th century. … By the
final overthrow of the Taira family at the sea fight of
Dan-no-Ura in A. D. 1185, Yoritomo, the chief of the
Minamotos, rose to supreme power, and obtained from the Court
at Kyoto the title of Shogun [converted by western tongues
into Tycoon], literally 'Generalissimo,' which had till then
been applied in its proper meaning to those generals who were
sent from time to time to subdue the Ainos or rebellious
provincials, but which thenceforth took to itself a special
sense, somewhat as the word Imperator (also meaning originally
'general') did in Rome. The coincidence is striking. So is the
contrast. For, as Imperial Rome never ceased to be
theoretically a republic, Japan contrariwise, though
practically and indeed avowedly ruled by the Shoguns from A.
D. 1190 to 1867, always retained the Mikado as theoretical
head of the state, descendant of the Sun-Goddess, fountain of
all honour. There never were two emperors, acknowledged as
such, one spiritual and one secular, as has been so often
asserted by European writers. There never was but one
emperor—an emperor powerless it is true, seen only by the
women who attended him, often a mere infant in arms, who was
discarded on reaching adolescence for another infant in arms.
Still, he was the theoretical head of the state, whose
authority was merely delegated to the Shogun as, so to say,
Mayor of the Palace. By a curious parallelism of destiny, the
Shogunate itself more than once showed signs of fading away
from substance into shadow. Yoritomo's descendants did not
prove worthy of him, and for more than a century (A. D.
1205-1333) the real authority was wielded by the so-called
'Regents' of the Hojo family. … Their rule was made
memorable by the repulse of the Mongol fleet sent by Kublai
Khan with the purpose of adding Japan to his gigantic
dominions. This was at the end of the 13th century, since
which time Japan has never been attacked from without. During
the 14th century, even the dowager-like calm of the Court of
Kyoto was broken by internecine strife. Two branches of the
Imperial house, supported each by different feudal chiefs,
disputed the crown. One was called the Hokucho, or 'Northern
Court,' the other the Nancho, or 'Southern Court.' After
lasting some sixty years, this contest terminated in A. D.
1392 by the triumph of the Northern dynasty, whose cause the
powerful Ashikaga family had espoused. From 1338 to 1565, the
Ashikagas ruled Japan as Shoguns. … Meanwhile Japan had been
discovered by the Portuguese (A. D. 1542); and the imprudent
conduct of the Portuguese and Spanish friars (bateren, as they
were called—a corruption of the word padre) made of the
Christian religion an additional source of discord. Japan fell
into utter anarchy. Each baron in his fastness was a law unto
himself. Then, in the latter half of the 16th century, there
arose successively three great men—Ota Nobunaga, the Taiko
Hideyoshi, and Tokugawa Ieyasu. The first of these conceived
the idea of centralising all the authority of the state in a
single person; the second, Hideyoshi, who has been called the
Napoleon of Japan, actually put the idea into practice, and
joined the conquest of Korea (A. D. 1592-1598) to his domestic
triumphs. Death overtook him in 1598, while he was revolving
no less a scheme than the conquest of China. Ieyasu, setting
Hideyoshi's youthful son aside, stepped into the vacant place.
An able general, unsurpassed as a diplomat and administrator,
he first quelled all the turbulent barons, then bestowed a
considerable portion of their lands on his own kinsmen and
dependents, and either broke or balanced, by a judicious
distribution of other fiefs over different provinces of the
Empire, the might of those greater feudal lords, such as
Satsuma and Choshu, whom it was impossible to put altogether
out of the way. The Court of Kyoto was treated by him
respectfully, and investiture as Shogun for himself and his
heirs duly obtained from the Mikado. In order further to break
the might of the daimyos, Ieyasu compelled them to live at
Yedo, which he had chosen for his capital in 1590, during six
months of the year, and to leave their wives and families
there as hostages during the other half. What Ieyasu sketched
out, the third Shogun of his line, Iemitsu, perfected. From
that time forward, 'Old Japan,' as we know it from the Dutch
accounts, from art, from the stage, was crystallised for two
hundred and fifty years. … Unchangeable to the outward eye
of contemporaries, Japan had not passed a hundred years under
the Tokugawa régime before the seeds of the disease which
finally killed that regime were sown. Strangely enough, the
instrument of destruction was historical research. Ieyasu
himself had been a great patron of literature. His grandson,
the second Prince of Mito, inherited his taste. Under the
auspices of this Japanese Maecenas, a school of literati arose
to whom the antiquities of their country were all in
all—Japanese poetry and romance as against the Chinese
Classics; the native religion, Shinto, as against the foreign
religion, Buddhism; hence, by an inevitable extension, the
ancient legitimate dynasty of the Mikados, as against the
upstart Shoguns. … When Commodore Perry came with his big
guns (A. D. 1853-4), he found a government already tottering
to its fall, many who cared little for the Mikado's abstract
rights, caring a great deal for the chance of aggrandising
their own families at the Shogun's expense. The Shogun yielded
to the demands of Perry and of the representatives of the
other foreign powers—England, France, Russia—who followed in
Perry's train, and consented to open Yokohama, Hakodate, and
certain other ports to foreign trade and residence (1857-9).
He even sent embassies to the United States and to Europe in
1860 and 1861. The knowledge of the outer world possessed by
the Court of Yedo, though not extensive, was sufficient to
assure the Shogun and his advisers that it was vain to refuse
what the Western powers claimed. The Court of Kyoto had had no
means of acquiring even this modicum of worldly wisdom.
According to its view, Japan, 'the land of the gods,' should
never be polluted by outsiders, the ports should be closed
again, and the 'barbarians' expelled at any hazard. What
specially tended to complicate matters at this crisis was the
independent action of certain daimyos. One of them, the Prince
of Choshu, acting, as is believed, under secret instructions
from the Court of Kyoto, fired on ships belonging to Great
Britain, France, Holland, and the United States—this, too, at
the very moment (1863) when the Shogun's government … was
doing its utmost to effect by diplomacy the departure of the
foreigners whom it had been driven to admit a few years before.
{1875}
The consequence of this act was what is called 'the
Shimonoseki Affair,' namely, the bombardment of Shimonoseki,
Choshu's chief sea-port, by the combined fleets of the powers
that had been insulted, and the exaction of an indemnity of
$3,000,000. Though doubtless no feather, this broke the
Shogunate's back. The Shogun Iemochi attempted to punish
Choshu for the humiliation which he had brought on Japan, but
failed, was himself defeated by the latter's troops, and died.
Hitotsubashi, the last of his line, succeeded him. But the
Court of Kyoto, prompted by the great daimyos of Choshu and
Satsuma, suddenly decided on the abolition of the Shogunate.
The Shogun submitted to the decree, and those of his followers
who did not were routed—first at Fushimi near Kyoto (17th
January, 1868), then at Ueno in Yedo (4th July, 1868), then in
Aizu (6th November, 1868), and lastly at Hakodate (27th June,
1869), where some of them had endeavoured to set up an
independent republic. The government of the country was
reorganised during 1867-8, nominally on the basis of a pure
absolutism, with the Mikado as sole wielder of all authority
both legislative and executive. Thus the literary party had
triumphed. All their dreams were realised. They were
henceforth to have Japan for the Japanese. … From this dream
they were soon roughly wakened. The shrewd clansmen of Satsuma
find Choshu, who had humoured the ignorance of the Court and
the fads of the scholars only as long as their common enemy,
the Shogunate, remained in existence, now turned round, and
declared in favour, not merely of foreign intercourse, but of
the Europeanisation of their own country. History has never
witnessed a more sudden 'volte-face.' History has never
witnessed a wiser one."
B. H. Chamberlain,
Things Japanese,
pages 143-160.
ALSO IN:
F. O. Adams,
History of Japan.
Sir E. J. Reed,
Japan,
volume 1, chapters 2-16.
W. E. Griffis,
The Mikado's Empire,
book 1.
R. Hildreth,
Japan, as it was and is.
JAPAN: A. D. 1549-1686.
Jesuit Missions.
The Century of Christianity.
Its introduction and extirpation
Francis Xavier, "the Apostle of the Indies, was both the
leader and director of a widely spread missionary movement,
conducted by a rapidly increasing staff, not only of Jesuits,
but also of priests and missionaries of other orders, as well
as of native preachers and catechists. Xavier reserved for
himself the arduous task of travelling to regions as yet
unvisited by any preachers of Christianity; and his bold and
impatient imagination was carried away by the idea of bearing
the Cross to the countries of the farthest East. The islands
of Japan, already known to Europe through the travels of Marco
Polo, had been reached by the Portuguese only eight years
before, namely, in 1541, and Xavier, while at Malacca, had
conversed with navigators and traders who had visited that
remote coast. A Japanese, named Angero (Hansiro), pursued for
homicide, had fled to Malacca in a Portuguese ship. He
professed a real or feigned desire to be baptized, and was
presented to Xavier at Malacca, who sent him to Goa. There he
learned Portuguese quickly, and was baptized under the name of
Paul of the Holy Faith. … Having carefully arranged the
affairs of the Seminary of the Holy Faith at Goa and the
entire machinery of the mission, Francis Xavier took ship for
Malacca on the 14th April, 1549. On the 24th of June he sailed
for Japan, along with Angero and his two companions, in a
Chinese junk belonging to a famous pirate, an ally of the
Portuguese, who left in their hands hostages for the safety of
the apostle on the voyage. After a dangerous voyage they
reached Kagosima, the native town of Angero, under whose
auspices Xavier was well received by the governor,
magistrates, and other distinguished people. The apostle was
unable to commence his mission at once, though, according to
his biographers, he possessed the gift of tongues. 'We are
here,' he writes, 'like so many statues. They speak to us, and
make signs to us, and we remain mute. We have again become
children, and all our present occupation is to learn the
elements of the Japanese grammar.' His first impressions of
Japan were very favourable. … Xavier left Japan on the 20th
November, 1551, after a stay of two years and four months. In
his controversies with the Japanese, Xavier had been
continually met with the objection—how could the Scripture
history be true when it had escaped the notice of the learned
men of China? It was Chinese sages who had taught philosophy
and history to the Japanese, and Chinese missionaries who had
converted them to Buddhism. To China, then, would he go to
strike a blow at the root of that mighty superstition.
Accordingly he sailed from Goa about the middle of April,
1552. … Being a prey to continual anxiety to reach the new
scene of his labours, Xavier fell ill, apparently of remittent
fever, and died on the 2nd of December, 1552. … The result
of Xavier's labours was the formation of a mission which, from
Goa as a centre, radiated over much of the coast of Asia from
Ormuz to Japan. … The two missionaries, whom Xavier had left
at Japan, were soon after joined by three others: and in 1556
they were visited by the Provincial of the Order in the
Indies, Melchior Nunez, who paid much attention to the
Japanese mission and selected for it the best missionaries, as
Xavier had recommended. … The Jesuits attached themselves to
the fortunes of the King of Bungo, a restless and ambitious
prince, who in the end added four little kingdoms to his own,
and thus became master of a large part of the island of
Kiusiu. In his dominions Christianity made such progress that
the number of converts began to be counted by thousands. …
The missionaries perseveringly sought to spread their religion
by preaching, public discussion, the circulation of
controversial writings, the instruction of the youth, the
casting out of devils, the performance of those mystery plays
so common in that age, by the institution of 'confréries' like
those of Avignon, and, above all, by the well-timed
administration of alms. Nor need we be surprised to learn that
their first converts were principally the blind, the infirm,
and old men one foot in the grave. There are, however, many
proofs in their letters that they were able both to attract
proselytes of a better class and to inspire them with an
enthusiasm which promised well for the growth of the mission.
In those early days the example of Xavier was still fresh; and
his immediate successors seem to have inherited his energetic
and self-denying disposition, though none of them could equal
the great mental and moral qualities of the Apostle of the
Indies. They kept at the same time a watchful eye upon the
political events that were going on around them, and soon
began to bear a part in them. The hostility between them and
the Bonzes became more and more bitter."
The Hundred Years of Christianity in Japan
(Quarterly Review, April, 1871).
{1876}
"In several of the provinces of Kyushu the princes had become
converts and had freely used their influence, and sometimes
their authority, to extend Christianity among their subjects.
In Kyoto and Yamaguchi, in Osaka and Sakai, as well as in
Kyusbu, the Jesuit fathers had founded flourishing churches
and exerted a wide influence. They had established colleges
where the candidates for the church could be educated and
trained. They had organized hospitals and asylums at Nagasaki
and elsewhere, where those needing aid could be received and
treated. It is true hat the progress of the work had met with
a severe setback in A. D. 1587, when Taiko Sam a issued an
edict expelling all foreign religious teachers from Japan. In
pursuance of this edict nine foreigners who had evaded
expulsion were burnt at Nagasaki. The reason for this decisive
action on the part of Taiko Sama is usually attributed to the
suspicion which had been awakened in him by the loose and
unguarded talk of a Portuguese sea captain. But other causes
undoubtedly contributed to produce in him this intolerant
frame of mind. … In several of the provinces of Japan where
the Jesuits had attained the ascendancy, the most forcible
measures had been taken by the Christian princes to compel all
their subjects to follow their own example and adopt the
Christian faith. Takeyama, whom the Jesuit fathers designate
as Justo Ucondono, carried out in his territory at Akashi a
system of bitter persecution. He gave his subjects the option
of becoming Christians or leaving his territory. Konishi
Yukinaga, who received part of the province of Higo as his
fief after the Korean war, enforced with great persistency the
acceptance of the Christian faith, and robbed the Buddhist
priests of their temples and their lands. The princes of Omura
and Arima, and to a certain extent the princes of Bungo,
followed the advice of the Jesuit fathers in using their
authority to advance the cause of Christianity. The fathers
could scarcely complain of having the system of intolerance
practised upon them, which, when circumstances were favorable,
they had advised to be applied to their opponents. … During
the first years of Ieyasu's supremacy the Christians were not
disturbed. … He issued in 1606 what may be called a warning
proclamation, announcing that he had learned with pain that,
contrary to Taiko Sama's edict, many had embraced the
Christian religion. He warned all officers of his court to see
that the edict was strictly enforced, He declared that it was
for the good of the state that none should embrace the new
doctrine; and that such as had already done so must change
immediately. … In the meantime both the English and Dutch
had appeared on the scene. … Their object was solely trade,
and as the Portuguese monopoly hitherto had been mainly
secured by the Jesuit fathers, it was natural for the
new-comers to represent the motive of these fathers in an
unfavorable and suspicious light. 'Indeed,' as Hildreth says,
'they had only to confirm the truth of what the Portuguese and
Spanish said of each other to excite in the minds of the
Japanese rulers the gravest distrust as to the designs of the
priests of both nations.' Whether it is true as charged that
the minds of the Japanese rulers had been poisoned against the
Jesuit fathers by misrepresentation and falsehood, it may be
impossible to determine definitely; but it is fair to infer
that the cruel and intolerant policy of the Spanish and
Portuguese would be fully set forth and the danger to the
Japanese empire from the machinations of the foreign religious
teachers held up in the worst light. … Ieyasu, evidently
having made up his mind that for the safety of the empire
Christianity must be extirpated, in 1614 issued an edict that
the members of all religious orders, whether European or
Japanese, should be sent out of the country: that the churches
which had been erected in various localities should be pulled
down, and that the native adherents of the faith should be
compelled to renounce it. In part execution of this edict all
the members of the Society of Jesus, native and foreign, were
ordered to be sent to Nagasaki. Native Christians were sent to
Tsugaru, the northern extremity of the Main island. … In
accordance with this edict, as many as 300 persons are said to
have been shipped from Japan October 25, 1614. All the
resident Jesuits were included in this number, excepting
eighteen fathers and nine brothers, who concealed themselves
and thus escaped the search. Following his deportation of
converts the most persistent efforts continued to be made to
force the native Christians to renounce their faith. The
accounts given, both by the foreign and by the Japanese
writers, of the persecutions which now broke upon the heads of
the Christians are beyond description horrible. … Rewards
were offered for information involving Christians of every
position and rank, even of parents against their children and
of children against their parents. … The persecution began
in its worst form about 1616. This was the year in which
Ieyasu died, but his son and successor carried out the
terrible programme with heartless thoroughness. It has never
been surpassed for cruelty and brutality on the part of the
persecutors, or for courage and constancy on the part of those
who suffered. … Mr. Gubbins … says: 'We read of Christians
being executed in a barbarous manner in sight of each other,
of their being hurled from the tops of precipices, of their
being buried alive, of their being torn asunder by oxen, of
their being tied up in rice-bags, which were heaped up
together, and of the pile thus formed being set on fire.
Others were tortured before death by the insertion of sharp
spikes under the nails of their hands and feet, while some
poor wretches by a refinement of horrid cruelty were shut up
in cages and there left to starve with food before their eyes.
Let it not be supposed that we have drawn on the Jesuit
accounts solely for this information. An examination of the
Japanese records will show that the case is not overstated.'"
D. Murray,
Story of Japan,
chapter 11.
"The persecutions went on, the discovery of Christians
occasionally occurring for several years, but in 1686 'the few
remaining had learnt how to conceal their belief and the
practice of their religion so well, that the Council issued a
circular to the chief Daimios of the south and west, stating
that none of the Kirishitan sect had been discovered of late
years, owing perhaps to laziness on the part of those whose
duty it was to search for them, and enjoining vigilance'
(Satow). Traces of the Christian religion and people lingered
in the country down to our own time."
Sir E. J. Reed,
Japan,
page 301.
{1877}
JAPAN: A. D. 1852-1888.
Opening the ports to foreigners.
The treaty with the United States and the other treaties which
followed.
"It is estimated that about the middle of the present century,
American capital to the amount of seventeen million dollars
was invested in the whaling industry in the seas of Japan and
China. We thus see that it was not a mere outburst of French
enthusiasm when M. Michelet paid this high tribute to the
service of the whale to civilization: 'Who opened to men the
great distant navigation? Who revealed the ocean and marked
out its zones and its liquid highways? Who discovered the
secrets of the globe? The Whale and the Whaler.' … There
were causes other than the mere safety of whalers which led to
the inception of the American expedition to Japan. On the one
hand, the rise of industrial and commercial commonwealths on
the Pacific, the discovery of gold in California, the
increasing trade with China, the development of steam
navigation—necessitating coal depots and ports for shelter,
the opening of highways across the Isthmus of Central America,
the missionary enterprises on the Asiatic continent, the rise
of the Hawaiian Islands,—on the other hand, the knowledge of
foreign nations among the ruling class in Japan, the news of
the British victory in China, the progress of European
settlements in the Pacific, the dissemination of western
science among a progressive class of scholars, the advice from
the Dutch government to discontinue the antiquated policy of
exclusion—all these testified that the fulness of time for
Japan to turn a new page in her history was at hand. … About
this time, a newspaper article concerning some Japanese waifs
who had been picked up at sea by the barque Auckland—Captain
Jennings—and brought to San Francisco, attracted the
attention of Commodore Aulick. He submitted a proposal to the
government that it should take advantage of this incident to
open commercial relations with the Empire, or at least to
manifest the friendly feelings of the country. This proposal
was made on the 9th of May, 1851. Daniel Webster was then
Secretary of State, and in him Aulick found a ready friend.
… Clothed with full power to negotiate and sign treaties,
and furnished with a letter from President Fillmore to the
Emperor, Commodore Aulick was on the eve of departure when for
some reason he was prevented. Thus the project which began at
his suggestion was obstructed when it was about to be
accomplished, and another man, perhaps better fitted for the
undertaking, entered into his labors. … Commodore [Matthew
Calbraith] Perry shared the belief in the expediency of
sending a special mission for the purpose. When Commodore
Aulick was recalled, Perry proposed to the U. S. Government an
immediate expedition. The proposal was accepted, and an
expedition on the most liberal scale was resolved upon. He was
invested with extraordinary powers, naval and diplomatic. The
East India and China Seas and Japan were the official
designation of the field of service, but the real object in
view was the establishment of a coal depot in Japan. The
public announcement of the resolution was followed by
applications from all quarters of Christendom for permission
to accompany the expedition; all these were, however, refused
on prudential grounds. … Impatient of the delay caused by
the tardy preparations of his vessels, Perry sailed from
Norfolk on the 24th of November, 1852, with one ship, the
Mississippi, leaving the rest to follow as soon as ready. …
The Mississippi … touching at, several ports on her way,
reached Loo Choo in May, where the squadron united. … In the
afternoon of the 8th of July, 1853, the squadron entered the
Bay of Yedo in martial order, and about 5 o'clock in the
evening was anchored off the town of Uraga. No sooner had 'the
black ships of the evil mien' made their entry into the Bay,
than the signal guns were fired, followed by the discharge of
rockets; then were seen on the shore companies of soldiers
moving from garrison to garrison. The popular commotion in
Yedo at the news of 'a foreign invasion' was beyond
description. The whole city was in an uproar. In all
directions were seen mothers flying with children in their
arms, and men with mothers on their backs. Rumors of an
immediate action, exaggerated each time they were communicated
from mouth to mouth, added horror to the horror-stricken. …
As the squadron dropped anchor, it was surrounded by junks and
boats of all sorts, but there was no hostile sign shown. A
document in French was handed on board, which proved to be a
warning to any foreign vessel not to come nearer. The next day
was spent in informal conference between the local officials
of Uraga and the subordinate officers of the squadron. It was
Commodore Perry's policy to behave with as much reserve and
exclusiveness as the Japanese diplomats had done and would do.
He would neither see, nor talk with, any except the highest
dignitary of the realm. Meanwhile, the governor of Uraga came
on board and was received by captains and lieutenants. He
declared that the laws forbade any foreign communication to be
held elsewhere than Nagasaki; but to Nagasaki the squadron
would never go. The vexed governor would send to Yedo for
further instructions, and the 12th was fixed as a day for
another conference. Any exchange of thought was either in the
Dutch language, for which interpreters were provided on both
sides, or in Chinese, through Dr. S. Wells Williams, and
afterward in Japanese, through Manjiro Nakahama. … On the
12th, the Governor of Uraga again appeared on board and
insisted on the squadron's leaving the Yedo Bay for Nagasaki,
where the President's letter would be duly received through
the Dutch or the Chinese. This the Commodore firmly refused to
do. It was therefore decided at the court of Yedo that the
letter be received at Kurihama, a few miles from the town of
Uraga. This procedure was, in the language of the
commissioners, 'in opposition to the Japanese law;' but, on
the ground that 'the Admiral, in his quality as Ambassador of
the President, would be insulted by any other course,' the
original of Mr. Fillmore's letter to the Japanese Emperor,
enclosed in a golden box of one thousand dollars in value, was
delivered on the 14th of July to the commissioners appointed
by the Shogun. …
{1878}
Fortunately for Japan, the disturbed state of affairs in
China made it prudent for Perry to repair to the ports of that
country, which he did as though he had consulted solely the
diplomatic convenience of our country. He left word that he
would come the ensuing spring for our answer. … It was the
Taiping Rebellion which called for Perry's presence in China.
The American merchants had large interests at stake
there—their property in Shanghai alone amounting, it is said,
to $1,200,000. … While in China, Commodore Perry found that
the Russian and French admirals, who were staying in Shanghai,
contemplated a near visit to Japan. That he might not give any
advantage to them, he left Macao earlier than he had intended,
and, on the 13th of February, found himself again in the Bay
of Yedo, with a stately fleet of eight ships. As the place
where the conference had been held at the previous visit was
out of the reach of gun-shot from the anchorage, Perry
expressed a desire of holding negotiations in Yedo, a request
impossible for the Japanese to comply with. After some
hesitation, the suburb Kanagawa was mutually agreed upon as a
suitable site, and there a temporary building was accordingly
erected for the transaction of the business. On the 8th of
May, Commodore Perry, arrayed in the paraphernalia befitting
his rank, was ushered into the house. The reply of the Shogun
to the President's letter was now given—the purport of which
was, decidedly in word but reluctantly in spirit, in favor of
friendly intercourse. Conferences were repeated in the middle
and latter part of the month, and after many evasions and
equivocations, deliberations and delays, invitations to
banquets and exchanges of presents, at last, on Friday, the
31st of May, the formal treaty was signed; a synopsis of which
is here presented:
1. Peace and friendship.
2. Ports of Shimoda and Hakodate open to American ships,
and necessary provisions to be supplied them.
3. Relief to shipwrecked people; expenses thereof not to be
refunded.
4. Americans to be free as in other countries, but amenable to
just laws.
5. Americans at Shimoda and Hakodate not to be subject to
restrictions; free to go about within defined limits.
6. Careful deliberation in transacting business which affects
the welfare of either party.
7. Trade in open ports subject to local regulations.
8. Wood, water, provisions, coal, etc., to be procured through
Japanese officers only.
9. Most-favored nation clause.
10. U. S. ships restricted to ports of Shimoda and Hakodate,
except when forced by stress of weather.
11. U. S. Consuls or agents to reside at Shimoda.
12. Ratifications to be exchanged within eighteen months. …
His labors at an end, Perry bade the last farewell to Japan
and started on his home-bound voyage. This was in June, 1854.
… No sooner had Perry left, carrying off the trophy of
peaceful victory—the treaty (though the Yedo government was
in no enjoyment of peaceful rest), than the Russian Admiral
Pontiatine appeared in Nagasaki. He urged that the same
privileges be granted his country as were allowed the
Americans. … Soon, the English Rear Admiral, Sir James
Stirling, arrives at the same harbor, very kindly to notify
the government that there may be some fighting in Japanese
waters between Russians and his countrymen. … The British
convention was signed October 14, 1854, and followed, in 1858,
by the Elgin treaty. The treaty with Russia was signed January
26, 1855; Netherlands, 9th of November the same year; France,
October 9, 1858; Portugal, 3rd of August, 1860; German Customs
Union, 25th of January, 1861. The other nations which followed
the United States were Italy, Spain, Denmark, Belgium,
Switzerland, Austria-Hungary, Sweden and Norway, Peru, Hawaii,
China, Corea and Siam; lastly Mexico, with whom we concluded a
treaty on terms of perfect equality (November 30, 1888)."
Inazo (Ota) Nitobe,
The Intercourse between the U. S. and Japan,
chapter 2.
ALSO IN:
F. L. Hawks,
Narrative of the Expedition under Commander Perry.
W. E. Griffis,
Matthew Calbraith Perry,
chapters 27-33.
JAPAN: A. D. 1869-1890.
Constitutional development.
"In 1869 was convened the Kogisho or 'Parliament,' as Sir
Harry Parkes translates it in his despatch to the Earl of
Clarendon. … The Kogisho was composed mostly of the
retainers of the Daimios, for the latter, having no experience
of the earnest business of life, 'were not eager to devote
themselves to the labors of an onerous and voluntary office.'
… The object of the Kogisho was to enable the government to
sound public opinion on the various topics of the day, and to
obtain the assistance of the country in the work of
legislation by ascertaining whether the projects of the
government were likely to be favorably received. The Kogisho,
like the Councils of Kuges and Daimios, was nothing but an
experiment, a mere germ of a deliberative assembly, which only
time and experience could bring to maturity. … It was a
quiet, peaceful, obedient debating society. It has left the
record of its abortive undertakings in the 'Kogisho Nishi' or
journal of 'Parliament.' The Kogisho was dissolved in the year
of its birth. And the indifference of the public about its
dissolution proves how small an influence it really had. But a
greater event than the dissolution of the Kogisho was pending
before the public gaze. This was the abolition of feudalism.
… The measure to abolish feudalism was much discussed in the
Kogisho before its dissolution. … In the following noted
memorial, after reviewing the political history of Japan
during the past few hundred years, these Daimios said: 'Now
the great Government has been newly restored and the Emperor
himself undertakes the direction of affairs. This is, indeed,
a rare and mighty event. We have the name (of an Imperial
Government), we must also have the fact. Our first duty is to
illustrate our faithfulness and to prove our loyalty. … The
place where we live is the Emperor's land and the food which
we eat is grown by the Emperor's men. How can we make it our
own? We now reverently offer up the list of our possessions
and men, with the prayer that the Emperor will take good
measures for rewarding those to whom reward is due and for
taking from those to whom punishment is due. Let the imperial
orders be issued for altering and remodelling the territories
of the various clans. Let the civil and penal codes, the
military laws down to the rules for uniform and the
construction of engines of war, all proceed from the Emperor;
let all the affairs of the empire, great and small, be
referred to him.' This memorial was signed by the Daimios of
Kago, Hizen, Satsuma, Choshiu, Tosa, and some other Daimios of
the west.
{1879}
But the real author of the memorial is believed to have been
Kido, the brain of the Restoration. Thus were the fiefs of the
most powerful and most wealthy Daimios voluntarily offered to
the Emperor. The other Daimios soon followed the example of
their colleagues. And the feudalism which had existed in Japan
for over eight centuries was abolished by the following
laconic imperial decree of August, 1871: 'The clans are
abolished, and prefectures are established in their places.'
… While the government at home was thus tearing down the old
framework of state, the Iwakura Embassy in foreign lands was
gathering materials for the new. This was significant,
inasmuch as five of the best statesmen of the time, with their
staff of forty-four able men, came into association for over a
year with western peoples, and beheld in operation their
social, political and religious institutions. … In 1873,
Count Itagaki with his friends had sent in a memorial to the
government praying for the establishment of a representative
assembly, but they had not been heeded by the government. In
July, 1877, Count Itagaki with his Ri-shi-sha again addressed
a memorial to the Emperor, 'praying for a change in the form
of government, and setting forth the reasons which, in the
opinion of the members of the society, rendered such a change
necessary.' These reasons were nine in number and were
developed at great length. … The civil war being ended, in
1878, the year which marks a decade from the establishment of
the new regime, the government, persuaded that the time for
popular institutions was fast approaching, not alone through
representations of the Tosa memorialists, but through many
other signs of the times, decided to take a step in the
direction of establishing a national assembly. But the
government acted cautiously. Thinking that to bring together
hundreds of members unaccustomed to parliamentary debate and
its excitement, and to allow them a hand in the administration
of affairs of the state, might be attended with serious
dangers, as a preparation for the national assembly the
government established first local assemblies. Certainly this
was a wise course. These local assemblies have not only been
good training schools for popular government, but also proved
reasonably successful. … The qualifications for electors
(males only) are: an age of twenty years, registration, and
payment of a land tax of $5. Voting is by ballot, but the
names of the voters are to be written by themselves on the
voting papers. There are now 2,172 members who sit in these
local assemblies. … The gulf between absolute government and
popular government was thus widened more and more by the
institution of local government. The popular tide raised by
these local assemblies was swelling in volume year by year.
New waves were set in motion by the younger generation of
thinkers. Toward the close of the year 1881 the flood rose so
high that the government thought it wise not to resist longer.
His Imperial Majesty, hearing the petitions of the people,
graciously confirmed and expanded his promise of 1868 by the
famous proclamation of October 12, 1881: 'We have long had it
in view to gradually establish a constitutional form of
government. … It was with this object in view that in the
eighth year of Meiji (1875) we established the Senate, and in
the eleventh year of Meiji (1878) authorized the formation of
local assemblies. … We therefore hereby declare that we
shall, in the twenty-third year of Meiji (1890) establish a
parliament, in order to carry into full effect the
determination we have announced; and we charge our faithful
subjects bearing our commissions to make, in the meantime, all
necessary preparations to that end.'"
T. Iyenaga,
The Constitutional Development of Japan, 1853-1881
(Johns Hopkins University Studies, 9th Series, number 9).
See CONSTITUTION OF JAPAN.
JAPAN: A. D. 1871-1872.
Organization of National Education.
See EDUCATION, MODERN: ASIA.
----------JAPAN: End----------
JAQUELINE OF HOLLAND AND HAINAULT,
The Despoiling of.
See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1417-1430.
JAQUES-GILMORE PEACE MISSION.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1864 (JULY).
JARL.
See EARL; and ETHEL.
JARNAC, Battle of (1569).
See FRANCE: A. D. 1563-1570.
JASPER, Sergeant, The exploit of.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1776 (JUNE).
JASSY, Treaty of (1792).
See TURKS: A. D. 1776-1792.
JATTS OR JAUTS.
See GYPSIES.
JAVA: A. D. 1811-1813.
Taken from the Dutch by the English.
Restored to Holland.
See INDIA: A. D. 1805-1816.
JAVAN.
The Hebrew form of the Greek race-name Ionian; "but in the Old
Testament it is generally applied to the island of Cyprus,
which is called the Island of Yavnan, or the Ionians, on the
Assyrian monuments."
A. H. Sayce,
Fresh Light from the Ancient Monuments,
chapter 2.
JAXARTES, The.
The ancient name of the river now called the Sir, or Sihun,
which empties into the Sea of Aral.
JAY, John,
In the American Revolution.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1774 (SEPTEMBER); and NEW YORK: A. D. 1777.
In diplomatic service.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: 1782 (SEPTEMBER-NOVEMBER).
And the adoption of the Federal Constitution.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1787-1789.
Chief justice of the Supreme Court.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1789-1792.
And the second Treaty with Great Britain.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1794-1795.
JAYHAWKERS AND RED LEGS.
During the conflict of 1854-1859 in Kansas, certain
"Free-state men in the Southeast, comparatively isolated,
having little communication with [the town of] Lawrence, and
consequently almost wholly without check, developed a
successful if not very praiseworthy system of retaliation.
Confederated at first for defense against pro-slavery
outrages, but ultimately falling more or less completely into
the vocation of robbers and assassins, they have received the
name—whatever its origin may be—of jayhawkers."
L. W. Spring,
Kansas, page 240.
"The complaints in former years of Border Ruffian forays from
Missouri into Kansas [see KANSAS: A. D. 1854-1859], were, as
soon as the civil war began, paid with interest by a continual
accusation of incursions of Kansas 'Jayhawkers' and 'Red Legs'
into Missouri."
J. G. Nicolay and J. Hay,
Abraham Lincoln,
volume 6, page 370.
JAYME.
See JAMES.
{1880}
JAZYGES, OR IAZYGES.
See LIMIGANTES.
JEAN.
See JOHN.
JEANNE I., Queen of Navarre, A. D. 1274-1305.
Jeanne II., Queen of Navarre, 1328-1349.
Jeanne D'Albret, Queen of Navarre, and the Reformation in
France.
See PAPACY: A. D. 1521-1535.
JEBUSITES, The.
The Canaanite inhabitants of the city of Jebus, or ancient
Jerusalem, which they held against the Israelites until David
took the place by storm and made it the capital of his
kingdom.
H. Ewald,
History of Israel,
book 3, section 1 (volume 3).
See JERUSALEM.
JECKER CLAIMS, The.
See MEXICO: A. D. 1861-1867.
JEFFERSON, Thomas:
Authorship of the Declaration of Independence.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1776 (JULY).
In the Cabinet of President Washington.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1789-1792; 1793.
Leadership of the Anti-Federalist or Republican Party.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1789-1792; and 1798.
Presidential administration.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1800, to 1806-1807.
JEFFERSON, Provisional Territory of.
See COLORADO: A. D.1806-1876.
JEFFREYS, and the "Bloody Assizes."
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1685.
JEHAD.
See DAR-UL-ISLAM.
JELLALABAD, Defense of (1842).
See AFGHANISTAN: A. D. 1838-1842.
JEM, OR DJEM, Prince, The story of.
See TURKS: A. D. 1481-1520.
JEMAPPES, Battle of.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1792 (SEPTEMBER-DECEMBER).
JEMMINGEN, Battle of (1568).
See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1568-1572.
JENA, Battle of.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1806 (OCTOBER).
JENGIS KHAN, Conquests of.
See MONGOLS: A. D. 1153-1227.
JENKINS' EAR, The War of.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1739-1741.
JENKINS' FERRY, Battle of.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1864 (MARCH-OCTOBER: ARKANSAS—MISSOURI).
JENNY GEDDES' STOOL.
See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1637.
JERBA, OR GELVES, The disaster at.
See BARBARY STATES: A. D. 1543-1560.
JERSEY AND GUERNSEY, The Isles of.
"Jersey, Guernsey, and their fellows are simply that part of
the Norman duchy which clave to its dukes when the rest fell
away. Their people are those Normans who remained Normans
while the rest stooped to become Frenchmen. The Queen of Great
Britain has a perfect right, if she will, to call herself
Duchess of the Normans, a title which, in my ears at least,
sounds better than that of Empress of India."
E. A. Freeman,
Practical Bearings of General European History
(Lectures to American Audiences), lecture 4.
ALSO IN:
D. T. Ansted and R. G. Latham,
The Channel Islands.
JERSEY PRISON SHIP, The.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1776-1777.
PRISONERS AND EXCHANGES.
JERSEYS, The.
East and West New Jersey.
See NEW JERSEY.
----------JERUSALEM: Start----------
JERUSALEM:
Early history.
"The first site of Jerusalem was the hill now erroneously
called Sion, and which we shall designate … as Pseudo-Sion,
the plateau of rock at the southwest, surrounded on all sides
by ravines, viz., by the Valley of Hinnom on the west and
south, and by the Tyropœon, or Cheesemakers' Valley, on the
north and east. Parallel to this lay the real Sion, the less
elevated eastern hill, shut in on the west by the Tyropœon
Valley, which divided it from Pseudo-Sion, and on the east by
the Valley of Jehoshaphat, and ending southward in a
wedge-like point opposite to the south-east corner of
Pseudo-Sion. The town on the western-most of these two ridges
was known first as Jebus, and afterwards as the High Town, or
Upper Market; and the accretion to it on the eastern hill was
anciently called Salem, and subsequently the Low Town and
Acra. In the days of lawless violence, the first object was
safety; and, as the eastern hill was by nature exposed on the
north, it was there protected artificially by a citadel and
fosse. The High Town and Low Town were originally two distinct
cities, occupied by the Amorites and Hittites, whence the
taunt of the prophet to Jerusalem: 'Thy birth and thy nativity

is of the land of Canaan; thy father was an Amorite and thy
mother a Hittite.' Hence, also, the dualistic form of the name
Jerusalem in Hebrew, signifying 'Twin-Jerusalem.' Indeed the
opinion has been broached that Jerusalem is the compound of
the two names, Jebus and Salem, softened 'euphoniæ gratiâ'
into Jerusalem. It is remarkable that to the very last the
quarter lying between the High Town and Low Town, though in
the very heart of the city when the different parts were
united into one compact body, was called the Suburb. The first
notice of Jerusalem is in the time of Abraham. The king of
Shinar and his confederates captured Sodom and Gomorrah, and
carried away Lot, Abraham's brother's son; when Abraham,
collecting his trainbands, followed after the enemy and
rescued Lot; and on his return 'at the valley of Shaveh, which
is the king's vale, Melchizedek, king of Salem—the priest of
the Most High God—blessed Abram.' The king's vale was the
Valley of Jehoshaphat: and Salem was identical with the
eastern hill, the real Zion as we learn from the Psalms, 'In
Salem is his tabernacle, and his dwelling-place in Zion;'
where Salem and Zion are evidently used as synonymous. Whether
Moriah, on which Abram offered his sacrifice, was the very
mount on which the Temple was afterwards built, must be left
to conjecture. But when the Second Book of Chronicles was
written, the Jews had at least a tradition to that effect, for
we read that 'Solomon began to build the house of the Lord at
Jerusalem in Mount Moriah.' On the exodus of the Israelites
from Egypt, we find distinct mention made of Jerusalem by that
very name; for after Joshua's death, 'the children of Judah
fought against Jerusalem, and took it … and set the city on
fire.' But Josephus is probably right in understanding this to
apply to the Low Town only, i. e., the eastern hill, or Sion,
as opposed to the western hill, the High Town, or Pseudo-Sion.
The men of Judah had only a temporary occupation even of the
Low Town, for it was not until the time of David that
Jerusalem was brought permanently under the dominion of the
Israelites."
T. Lewin,
Jerusalem,
chapter 1.
{1881}
JERUSALEM:
Conquest and occupation by David.
"David had reigned seven years and a half in Hebron over the
tribe of Judah alone.
See JEWS: THE KINGDOMS OF ISRAEL AND JUDAH.
He was now solemnly installed as king by the elders of all
Israel, and 'made a league with them before Jehovah in
Hebron.' This was equivalent to what we now call a 'coronation
oath,' and denoted that he was a constitutional, not an
arbitrary monarch. The Israelites had no intention to resign
their liberties, but in the sequel it will appear, that, with
paid foreign troops at his side, even a most religious king
could be nothing but a despot. Concerning David's military
proceedings during his reign at Hebron, we know nothing in
detail, though we read of Joab bringing in a large spoil,
probably from his old enemies the Amalekites. David had an
army to feed, to exercise, and to keep out of mischief; but it
is probable that the war against Abner generally occupied it
sufficiently. Now however he determined to signalize his new
power by a great exploit. The strength of Jerusalem had been
sufficiently proved by the long secure dwelling of Jebusites
in it, surrounded by a Hebraized population. Hebron was no
longer a suitable place for the centre of David's
administration; but Jerusalem, on the frontier of Benjamin and
Judah, without separating him from his own tribe, gave him a
ready access to the plains of Jericho below, and thereby to
the eastern districts; and although by no means a central
position, it was less remote from Ephraim than Hebron. Of this
Jebusite town he therefore determined to possess himself. …
The Jebusites were so confident of their safety, as to send to
David an enigmatical message of defiance; which may be
explained,—that a lame and blind garrison was sufficient to
defend the place. David saw in this an opportunity of
displacing Joab from his office of chief captain,—if indeed
Joab formally held that office as yet, and had not merely
assumed authority as David's eldest nephew and old comrade in
arms. The king however now declared, that whoever should first
scale the wall and drive off its defenders, should be made
chief captain; but his hopes were signally disappointed. His
impetuous nephew resolved not to be outdone, and triumphantly
mounting the wall, was the immediate means of the capture of
the town. … Jerusalem is henceforth its name in … history;
in poetry only, and not before the times of king Hezekiah, is
it entitled Salem, or peace; identifying it with the city of
the legendary Melchisedek. David's first care was to provide
for the security of his intended capital, by suitable
fortifications. Immediately to the north of Mount Zion, and
separated from it by a slighter depression which we have
named, was another hill, called Millo in the Hebrew. … In
ancient times this seems to have been much loftier than now;
for it has been artificially lowered. David made no attempt to
include Millo (or Acra) in his city, but fortified Mount Zion
separately; whence it was afterwards called, The city of
David."
F. W. Newman,
A History of the Hebrew Monarchy,
chapter 3.
"The Jebusite city was composed of the fortress of Sion, which
must have been situated where the mosque of El Akasa now
stands, and of a lower town (Ophel) which runs down from there
to the well which they called Gihon. David took the fortress
of Sion, and gave the greater portion of the neighbouring
lands to Joab, and probably left the lower town to the
Jebusites. That population, reduced to an inferior situation,
lost all energy, thanks to the new Israelitish influx, and
played no important part in the history of Jerusalem. David
rebuilt the upper town of Sion, the citadel or millo, and all
the neighbouring quarters. This is what they called the city
of David. … David in reality created Jerusalem."
E. Renan,
History of the People of Israel,
book 2, chapter 18 (volume 1).
ALSO IN:
H. Ewald,
History of Israel,
book 2, section 1, B.
JERUSALEM:
Early sieges.
Jerusalem, the ancient stronghold of the Jebusites, which
remained in the hands of that Canaanite people until David
reduced it and made it the capital of his kingdom, was the
object of many sieges in its subsequent history and suffered
at the hands of many ruthless conquerors. It was taken, with
no apparent resistance, by Shishak, of Egypt, in the reign of
Rehoboam, and Solomon's temple plundered. Again, in the reign
of Amaziah, it was entered by the armies of the rival kingdom
of Israel and a great part of its walls thrown down. It was
besieged without success by the tartan or general of
Sennacherib, and captured a little later by Pharaoh Necho. In
B. C. 586 the great calamity of its conquest and destruction
by Nebuchadnezzar befell, when the survivors of its chief
inhabitants were taken captive to Babylon. Rebuilt at the
return from captivity, it enjoyed peace under the Persians;
but in the troubled times which followed the dissolution of
Alexander's Empire, Jerusalem was repeatedly pillaged and
abused by the Greeks of Egypt and the Greeks of Syria. Its
walls were demolished by Ptolemy I. (B. C. 320) and again by
Autiochus Epiphanes (B. C. 168), when a great part of the city
was likewise burned.
Josephus,
Antiquity of the Jews.
ALSO IN:
H. H. Milman,
History of the Jews.
See, also, JEWS.
JERUSALEM: B. C. 171-169.
Sack and massacre by Antiochus Epiphanes.
See JEWS: B. C. 332-167.
JERUSALEM: B. C. 63.
Siege and capture by Pompeius.
See JEWS: B. C. 166-40.
JERUSALEM: B. C. 40.
Surrendered to the Parthians.
See JEWS: B. C. 166-40.
JERUSALEM: B. C. 37.
Siege by Herod and the Romans.
See Jews: B. C. 40—A. D. 44.
JERUSALEM: A. D. 33-100.
Rise of the Christian Church.
See CHRISTIANITY: A. D. 33-100.
JERUSALEM: A. D. 70.-Siege and destruction by Titus.
See JEWS: A. D. 66-70.
THE GREAT REVOLT.
JERUSALEM: A. D. 130-134.
Rebuilt by Hadrian.
Change of name.
The revolt of Bar-Kokheba.
See JEWS: A. D. 130-134.
JERUSALEM: A. D. 615.
Siege, sack and massacre by the Persians.
In the last of the wars of the Persians with the Romans, while
Heraclius occupied the throne of the Empire, at
Constantinople, and Chosroës II. filled that of the
Sassanides, the latter (A. D. 614) "sent his general,
Shahr-Barz, into the region east of the Antilibanus and took
the ancient and famous city of Damascus. From Damascus, in the
ensuing year, Shahr-Barz advanced against Palestine, and,
summoning the Jews to his aid, proclaimed a Holy War against
the Christian misbelievers, whom he threatened to enslave or
exterminate. Twenty-six thousand of these fanatics flocked to
his standard; and having occupied the Jordan region and
Galilee, Shahr-Barz in A. D. 615 invested Jerusalem, and after
a siege of eighteen days forced his way into the town and gave
it over to plunder and rapine.
{1882}
The cruel hostility of the Jews had free vent. The churches of
Helena, of Constantine, of the Holy Sepulchre, of the
Resurrection, and many others, were burnt or ruined; the
greater part of the city was destroyed; the sacred treasuries
were plundered; the relics scattered or carried off; and a
massacre of the inhabitants, in which the Jews took the chief
part, raged throughout the whole city for some days. As many
as 17,000, or, according to another account, 90,000, were
slain. Thirty-five thousand were made prisoners. Among them
was the aged patriarch, Zacharias, who was carried captive
into Persia, where he remained till his death. The Cross found
by Helena, and believed to be 'the True Cross,' was at the
same time transported to Ctesiphon; where it was preserved
with care and duly venerated by the Christian wife of
Chosroës."
G. Rawlinson,
The Seventh Great Oriental Monarchy,
chapter 24.
See, also, ROME: A. D. 565-628.
JERUSALEM: A. D. 637.
Surrender to the Moslems.
In the winter of 637, the Arabs, then masters of the greater
part of Syria, laid siege to Jerusalem. After four months of
vigorous attack and defense, the Christian Patriarch of
Jerusalem held a parley from the walls with the Arab general,
Abu Obeidah. "'Do you not know,' said he, 'that this city is
holy, and that whoever offers violence to it draws upon his
head the vengeance of heaven?' 'We know it,' replied Abu
Obeidah, 'to be the house of the prophets, where their bodies
lie interred; we know it to be the place whence our prophet
Mahomet made his nocturnal ascent to heaven; and we know that
we are more worthy of possessing it than you are, nor will we
raise the siege until Allah has delivered it into our hands,
as he has done many other places.' Seeing there was no further
hope, the patriarch consented to give up the city, on
condition that the Caliph would come in person to take
possession and sign the articles of surrender." This proposal
being communicated to Omar, the Caliph, he consented to make
the long journey from Medina to Jerusalem, and, in due time,
he entered the Holy City, not like a conqueror, but on foot,
with his staff in his hand and wearing his simple,
much-patched Arab garb. "The articles of surrender were drawn
up in writing by Omar, and served afterwards as a model for
the Moslem leaders in other conquests. The Christians were to
build no new churches in the surrendered territory. The church
doors were to be set open to travellers, and free ingress
permitted to Mahometans by day and night. The bells should
only toll, and not ring, and no crosses should be erected on
the churches, nor shown publicly in the streets. The
Christians should not teach the Koran to their children; nor
speak openly of their religion; nor attempt to make
proselytes; nor hinder their kinsfolk from embracing Islam.
They should not assume the Moslem dress, either caps,
slippers, or turbans, nor part their hair like Moslems, but
should always be distinguished by girdles. They should not use
the Arabian language in inscriptions on their signets, nor
salute after the Moslem manner, nor be called by Moslem
surnames. They should rise on the entrance of a Moslem, and
remain standing until he should be seated. They should
entertain every Moslem traveller three days gratis. They
should sell no wine, bear no arms, and use no saddle in
riding; neither should they have any domestic who had been in
Moslem service. … The Christians having agreed to surrender
on these terms, the Caliph gave them, under his own hand, an
assurance of protection in their lives and fortunes, the use
of their churches, and the exercise of their religion."
W. Irving,
Mahomet and His Successors,
volume 2, chapter 18.
See, also, MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 632-639.
JERUSALEM: A. D. 908-1171.
In the Moslem civil wars.
See MAHOMETAN CONQUEST and EMPIRE: A. D. 908-1171.
JERUSALEM: A. D. 1064-1076.
Great revival of pilgrimages from western Europe.
See CRUSADES: CAUSES, &c.
JERUSALEM: A. D. 1076.
Taken by the Seljuk Turks.
See CRUSADES: CAUSES, &c.
JERUSALEM: A. D. 1094.
Visit of Peter the Hermit.
See CRUSADES: A. D. 1094-1095.
JERUSALEM: A. D. 1099.
The Blood "Deliverance" of the Holy City by the Crusaders.
The armies of the First Crusade (see CRUSADES: A. D.
1096-1099)—the surviving remnant of them—reached Jerusalem
in June, A. D. 1099. They numbered, it is believed, but 20,000
fighting men, and an equal number of camp followers,—women,
children, non-militant priests, and the like. "Immediately
before the arrival of the Crusaders, the Mohammedans
deliberated whether they should slaughter all the Christians
in cold blood, or only fine them and expel them from the city.
It was decided to adopt the latter plan; and the Crusaders
were greeted on their arrival not only by the flying squadrons
of the enemy's cavalry, but also by exiled Christians telling
their piteous tales. Their houses had been pillaged, their
wives kept as hostages; immense sums were required for their
ransom; the churches were desecrated; and, even worse still,
the Infidels were contemplating the entire destruction of the
Church of the Holy Sepulchre. This last charge, at least, was
not true. But it added fuel to a fire which was already beyond
any control, and the chiefs gave a ready permission to their
men to carry the town, if they could, by assault." They were
repulsed with heavy loss, and driven to the operations of a
regular siege, for which their resources were limited in the
extreme. But overcoming all difficulties, and enduring much
suffering from lack of water, at the end of little more than a
month they drove the Moslems from the walls and entered the
city—on Friday, the 15th of July, A. D. 1099. "The city was
taken, and the massacre of its defenders began. The Christians
ran through the streets slaughtering as they went. At first
they spared none, neither man, woman, nor child, putting all
alike to the sword; but when resistance had ceased, and rage
was partly appeased, they began to bethink them of pillage,
and tortured those who remained alive to make them discover
their gold. As for the Jews within the city, they had fled to
their synagogue, which the Christians set on fire, and so
burned them all. The chroniclers relate, with savage joy, how
the streets were encumbered with heads and mangled bodies, and
how in the Haram Area, the sacred enclosure of the Temple, the
knights rode in blood up to the knees of their horses. Here
upwards of ten thousand were slaughtered, while the whole
number of killed amounted, according to various estimates, to
forty, seventy, and even a hundred thousand. …
{1883}
Evening fell, and the clamour ceased, for there were no more
enemies to kill, save a few whose lives had been promised by
Tancred. Then from their hiding-places in the city came out
the Christians who still remained in it. They had but one
thought, to seek out and welcome Peter the Hermit, whom they
proclaimed as their liberator. At the sight of these
Christians, a sudden revulsion of feeling seized the soldiers.
They remembered that the city they had taken was the city of
the Lord, and this impulsive soldiery, sheathing swords
reeking with blood, followed Godfrey to the Church of the Holy
Sepulchre, where they passed the night in tears and prayers
and services. In the morning the carnage began again. Those
who had escaped the first fury were the women and children. It
was now resolved to spare none. Even the three hundred to whom
Tancred had promised life were slaughtered in spite of him.
Raymond alone managed to save the lives of those who
capitulated to him from the tower of David. It took a week to
kill the Saracens, and to take away their dead bodies. Every
Crusader had a right to the first house he took possession of,
and the city found itself absolutely cleared of its old
inhabitants, and in the hands of a new population. The true
Cross, which had been hidden by the Christians during the
siege, was brought forth again, and carried in joyful
procession round the city, and for ten days the soldiers gave
themselves up to murder, plunder—and prayers! And the first
Crusade was finished."
W. Besant and E. H. Palmer,
Jerusalem,
chapter 6.
ALSO IN:
C. Mills,
History of the Crusades,
volume 1, chapter 6.
J. F. Michaud,
History of the Crusades,
book 4.
JERUSALEM: A. D. 1099-1144.
The Founding of the Latin kingdom.
Eight days after their bloody conquest of the Holy City had
been achieved, "the Latin chiefs proceeded to the election of
a king, to guard and govern their conquests in Palestine. Hugh
the Great [count of Vermandois] and Stephen of Chartres had
retired with some loss of reputation, which they strove to
regain by a second crusade and an honourable death. Baldwin
was established at Edessa, and Bohemond at Antioch; and two
Roberts—the Duke of Normandy and the Count of Flanders—
preferred their fair inheritance in the West to a doubtful
competition or a barren sceptre. The jealousy and ambition of
Raymond [of Toulouse] were condemned by his own followers; and
the free, the just, the unanimous voice of the army proclaimed
Godfrey of Bouillon the first and most worthy of the champions
of Christendom. His magnanimity accepted a trust as full of
danger as of glory; but in the city where his Saviour had been
crowned with thorns the devout pilgrim rejected the name and
ensigns of royalty, and the founder of the kingdom of
Jerusalem contented himself with the modest title of Defender
and Baron of the Holy Sepulchre. His government of a single
year, too short for the public happiness, was interrupted in
the first fortnight by a summons to the field by the approach
of the vizir or sultan of Egypt, who had been too slow to
prevent, but who was impatient to avenge, the loss of
Jerusalem. His total overthrow in the battle of Ascalon sealed
the establishment of the Latins in Syria, and signalized the
valour of the French princes, who in this action bade a long
farewell to the holy wars. … After suspending before the
Holy sepulchre the sword and standard of the sultan, the new
king (he deserves the title) embraced his departing
companions, and could retain only, with the gallant Tancred,
300 knights and 2,000 foot soldiers, for the defence of
Palestine."
E. Gibbon,
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
chapter 58.
Godfrey lived not quite a year after his election, and was
succeeded on the throne of Jerusalem by his brother Baldwin,
the prince of Edessa, who resigned that Mesopotamian lordship
to his cousin, Baldwin du Bourg, and made haste to secure the
more tempting sovereignty. Godfrey, during his short reign,
had permitted himself to be made almost a vassal and
subordinate of the patriarch of Jerusalem—one Daimbert, a
domineering prelate from Italy. But Baldwin matched the priest
in his own grasping qualities and soon established the
kingship on a more substantial footing. He reigned eighteen
years, and when he died, in 1118, the fortunate cousin,
Baldwin du Bourg, received his crown, surrendering the
principality of Edessa to another. This Baldwin II. died in
1131, and was succeeded by Fulk or Foulque, count of Anjou,
who had lately arrived in Palestine and married Baldwin's
daughter. "The Latin dominions in the East attained their
greatest extent in the reign of King Baldwin II. … The
entire sea-coast from Tarsus in Cilicia to El-Arish on the
confines of Egypt was, with the exception of Ascalon and Gaza,
in the possession of the Franks. In the north their dominions
extended inland to Edessa beyond the Euphrates; the mountains
of Lebanon and their kindred ranges bounded them on the east
as they ran southwards; and then the Jordan and the desert
formed their eastern limits. They were divided into four
states, namely, the kingdom of Jerusalem, the county of
Tripolis, the principality of Antioch, and the county of
Edessa; the rulers of the three last held as vassals under the
king." King Fulk died in 1143 or 1144, and was succeeded by
his son, Baldwin III. Edessa was lost in the following year.
T. Keightley,
The Crusaders
chapter 2.
See, also,
CRUSADES: A. D. 1104-1111.
JERUSALEM: A. D. 1099-1291.
The constitution of the kingdom.
"Godfrey was an elected king; and we have seen that his two
immediate successors owed their crowns rather to personal
merit and intrigue than to principles of hereditary
succession. But after the death of Baldwin du Bourg, the
foundation of the constitution appears to have been settled;
and the Latin state of Jerusalem may be regarded as a feudal
hereditary monarchy. There were two chief lords of the
kingdom, namely, the patriarch and the king, whose cognizance
extended over spiritual and temporal affairs. … The great
officers of the crown were the seneschal, the constable, the
marshal, and the chamberlain. … There were four chief
baronies of the kingdom, and many other lordships which had
the privileges of administering justice, coining money, and,
in short, most of those powers and prerogatives which the
great and independent nobility of Europe possessed. The first
great barony comprised the counties of Jaffa and Ascalon, and
the lordships of Ramula, Mirabel, and Ibelin. The second was
the principality of Galilee. The third included the lordships
of Sajetta, Cesarea, and Nazareth; and the fourth was the
county of Tripoli. …
{1884}
But the dignity of these four great barons is shewn by the
number of knights which they were obliged to furnish, compared
with the contributions of other nobles. Each of the three
first barons was compelled to aid the king with five hundred
knights. The service of Tripoli was performed by two hundred
knights; that of the other baronies by one hundred and
eighty-three Knights. Six hundred and sixty-six knights was
the total number furnished by the cities of Jerusalem,
Naplousa, Acre, and Tyre. The churches and the commercial
communities of every part of the kingdom provided five
thousand and seventy-five serjeants or serving men."
C. Mills,
History of the Crusades,
volume 1, chapter 8.
ALSO IN:
E. Gibbon,
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
chapter 58.
See, also, ASSIZE OF JERUSALEM.
JERUSALEM: A. D. 1147-1149.
The note of alarm and the Second Crusade.
See CRUSADES: A. D. 1147-1149.
JERUSALEM: A. D. 1149-1187.
Decline and fall of the kingdom.
The Rise of Saladin and his conquest of the Holy City.
King Fulk was succeeded in 1144 by his son, a boy of thirteen,
who took the title of Baldwin III. and with whom his mother
associated herself on the throne. It was early in this reign
of the boy-king that Edessa was taken by Zenghi, sultan of
Aleppo, and an appeal made to Europe which called out the
miserably abortive Second Crusade. The crusade "did nothing
towards the maintenance of the waning ascendency of the
Latins. Even victories brought with them no solid result, and
in not a few instances victory was misused with a folly
closely allied to madness. … The interminable series of
wars, or rather of forays and reprisals, went on; and amidst
such contests the life of Baldwin closed [A. D. 1162] in early
manhood. … He died childless, and although some opposition
was made to his choice, his brother Almeric [or Amaury] was
elected to fill his place. Almost at the beginning of his
reign the affairs of the Latin kingdom became complicated with
those of Egypt; and the Christians are seen fighting by the
side of one Mahomedan race, tribe, or faction against
another." The Fatimite caliphs of Egypt had become mere
puppets in the hands of their viziers, and when one grand
vizier, Shawer, deposed by a rival, Dargham, appealed to the
sultan of Aleppo (Noureddin, son of Zenghi), the latter
embraced eagerly the opportunity to stretch his strong hand
towards the Fatimite throne. Among his generals was Shiracouh,
a valiant Koord, and he sent Shiracouh to Egypt to restore
Shawer to power. With Shiracouh went a young nephew of the
Koordish soldier, named Salah-ud-deen—better known in history
as Saladin. Shawer, restored to authority, quickly quarrelled
with his protectors, and endeavored to get rid of them—which
proved not easy. He sought and obtained help from the Latin
king of Jerusalem, in whose mind, too, there was the ambition
to pluck this rotten-ripe plum on the Nile. After a war of
five years duration, in which king Almeric was encouraged and
but slightly helped by the Byzantine emperor, while Noureddin
was approved and supported by the caliph of Bagdad,
Noureddin's Koord general, Shiracouh, secured the prize. Grand
vizier Shawer was put to death, and the wretched Fatimite
caliph made young Saladin his vizier, fancying he had chosen a
young man too fond of pleasure to be dangerously ambitious. He
was speedily undeceived. Saladin needed only three years to
make himself master of Egypt, and the caliph, then dying, was
stripped of his title and his sovereignty. The bold Koord took
the throne in the name of the Abbasside Caliph, at Bagdad,
summarily ending the Fatimite schism. He was still nominally
the servant of the sultan of Aleppo; but when Noureddin died,
A. D. 1178, leaving his dominions to a young son, Saladin was
able, with little resistance, to displace the latter and to
become undisputed sovereign of Mahometan Syria, Egypt, and a
large part of Mesopotamia. He now resolved to expel the Latins
from Palestine and to restore the authority of the prophet
once more in the holy places of Jerusalem. King Almeric had
died in 1173, leaving his crown to a son, Baldwin IV., who was
an unfortunate leper. The leper prince died in 1185, and the
only makeshift for a king that Jerusalem found in this time of
serious peril was one Guy of Lusignan, a vile and despised
creature, who had married the last Baldwin's sister. The Holy
Land, the Holy City and the Holy Sepulchre had this pitiful
kinglet for their defender when the potent Saladin led his
Moslems against them. The decisive battle was fought in July,
A. D. 1187, near the city of Tiberias, and is known generally
in Christian history as the Battle of Tiberias, but was called
by Mahometan annalists the Battle of Hittin. The Christians
were defeated with great slaughter; the miserable King Guy was
taken prisoner—but soon released, to make trouble; the "true
cross," most precious of all Christian relics, fell into
Saladin's irreverent hands. Tiberias, Acre, Cæsarea, Jaffa,
Berytos, Ascalon, submitted to the victor. Jerusalem was at
his mercy; but he offered its defenders and inhabitants
permission to depart peacefully from the place, having no
wish, he said, to defile its hallowed soil with blood. When
his offer was rejected, he made a vow to enter the city with
his sword and to do as the Christians had done when they waded
to their knees in blood through its streets. But when, after a
short siege of fourteen days, Jerusalem was surrendered to
him, he forgot his angry oath, and forgot the vengeance which
might not have seemed strange in that age and that place. The
sword of the victor was sheathed. The inhabitants were
ransomed at a stipulated rate, and those for whom no ransom
was paid were held as slaves. The sick and the helpless were
permitted to remain in the city for a year, with the Knights
of the Hospital—conspicuous among the enemies of Saladin and
his faith—to attend upon them. The Crescent shone
Christian-like as it rose over Jerusalem again. The Cross—the
Crusaders' Cross—was shamed. The Latin kingdom of Jerusalem
was now nearly extinct; Tyre alone held out against Saladin
and constituted the most of the kingdom of King Guy of
Lusignan.
G. W. Cox,
The Crusades,
chapter 6.
ALSO IN:
W. Besant and E. H. Palmer,
Jerusalem,
chapters 12-16.
J. F. Michaud,
History of the Crusades,
book 7.
Mrs. W. Busk,
Mediæval Popes, Emperors, Kings and Crusaders,
book 2, chapters 10-11 (volume 2).
See, also,
SALADIN, THE EMPIRE OF.
JERUSALEM: A. D. 1188-1192.
Attempted recovery.
The Third Crusade.
See CRUSADES: A. D. 1188-1192.
{1885}
JERUSALEM: A. D. 1192-1229.
The succession of nominal kings.
Guy de Lusignan, the poor creature whom Sybille, daughter of
King Amaury, married and made king of Jerusalem, lost his
kingdom fairly enough on the battle-field of Tiberias. To win
his freedom from Saladin, moreover, he renounced his claims by
a solemn oath and pledged himself to quit the soil of
Palestine forever. But oaths were of small account with the
Christian Crusaders, and with the priests who kept their
consciences. Guy got easy absolution for the trifling perjury,
and was a king once more,—waiting for the Crusaders to
recover his kingdom. But when, in 1190, his queen Sybille and
her two children died, King Guy's royal title wore a faded
look to most people and was wholly denied by many. Presently,
Conrad of Montferrat, who held possession of Tyre—the best
part of what remained in the actual kingdom of
Jerusalem—married Sybille's sister, Isabella, and claimed the
kingship in her name. King Richard of England supported Guy,
and King Philip Augustus of France, in sheer contrariness,
took his side with Conrad. After long quarreling it was
decided that Guy should wear the crown while he lived, and
that it should pass when he died to Conrad and Conrad's
children. It was Richard's wilfulness that forced this
settlement; but, after all, on quitting Palestine, in 1192,
the English king did not dare to leave affairs behind him in
such worthless hands. He bought, therefore, the abdication of
Guy de Lusignan, by making him king of Cyprus, and he gave the
crown of Jerusalem to the strong and capable Conrad. But
Conrad was murdered in a little time by emissaries of the Old
Man of the Mountain (see ASSASSINS), who accused Richard of
the instigation of the deed, and Count Henry of Champagne,
Richard's nephew, accepted his widow and his crown. Henry
enjoyed his titular royalty and his little hand-breadth of
dominion on the Syrian coast for four years, only. Then he was
killed, while defending Jaffa, and his oft-widowed widow,
Isabella, brought the Lusignans back into Palestinian history
again by marrying, for her fourth husband, Amaury de Lusignan,
who had succeeded his brother Guy, now deceased, as king of
Cyprus. Amaury possessed the two crowns, of Cyprus and
Jerusalem, until his death, when the latter devolved on the
daughter of Isabella, by her second husband, Conrad. The young
queen accepted a husband recommended by the king of France,
and approved by her barons, thus bringing a worthy king to the
worthless throne. This was John de Brienne, a good French
knight, who came to Palestine (A. D. 1210) with a little
following of three hundred knights and strove valiantly to
reconquer a kingdom for his royally entitled bride. But he
strove in vain, and fragment after fragment of his crumbling
remnant of dominion fell away until he held almost nothing
except Acre. In 1217 the king of Hungary, the duke of Austria
and a large army of crusaders came, professedly, to his help,
but gave him none. The king of Hungary got possession of the
head of St. Peter, the right hand of St. Thomas and one of the
wine vessels of the marriage feast at Cana, and hastened home
with his precious relics. The other crusaders went away to
attack Egypt and brought their enterprise to a miserable end.
Then King John de Brienne married his daughter Yolante, or
Iolanta, to the German emperor, or King of the Romans,
Frederick II., and surrendered to that prince his rights and
claims to the kingship of Jerusalem. Frederick, at war with
the Pope, and under the ban of the Church, went to Palestine,
with 600 knights, and contrived by clever diplomacy and
skilful pressure to secure a treaty with the sultan of Egypt
(A. D. 1229), which placed Jerusalem, under some conditions,
in his hands, and added other territory to the kingdom which
he claimed by right of his wife. He entered Jerusalem and
there set the crown on his own head; for the patriarch, the
priests, and the monk-knights, of the Hospital and the Temple,
shunned him and refused recognition to his work. But Frederick
was the only "King of Jerusalem" after Guy de Lusignan, who
wore a crown in the Holy City, and exercised in reality the
sovereignty to which he pretended. Frederick returned to Italy
in 1229 and his kingdom in the East was soon as shadowy and
unreal as that of his predecessors had been.
W. Besant and E. H. Palmer,
Jerusalem,
chapters 15 and 18.
ALSO IN:
J. F. Michaud,
History of the Crusades,
books 8-12.
See, also,
CRUSADES: 1188-1192, and 1216-1229;
and CYPRUS: A. D. 1192-1489.
JERUSALEM: A. D. 1242.
Sack and massacre by the Carismians.
After the overthrow of the Khuarezmian (Korasmian or
Carismian) empire by the Mongols, its last prince, Gelaleddin,
or Jalalu-d-Din, implacably pursued by those savage
conquerors, fought them valiantly until he perished, at last,
in Kurdistan. His army, made up of many mercenary bands,
Turkish and other, then scattered, and two, at least, among
its wandering divisions played important parts in subsequent
history. Out of one of those Khuarezmian squadrons rose the
powerful nation of the Ottoman Turks. The other invaded Syria.
"The Mussulman powers of Syria several times united in a
league against the Carismians, and drove them back to the
other side of the Euphrates. But the spirit of rivalry which
at all times divided the princes of the family of Saladin,
soon recalled an enemy always redoubtable notwithstanding
defeats. At the period of which we are speaking, the princes
of Damascus, Carac, and Emessa had just formed an alliance
with the Christians of Palestine; they not only restored
Jerusalem, Tiberias, and the principality of Galilee to them,
but they promised to join them in the conquest of Egypt, a
conquest for which the whole of Syria was making preparations.
The sultan of Cairo, to avenge himself upon the Christians who
had broken the treaties concluded with him, to punish their
new allies, and protect himself from their invasion,
determined to apply for succour to the hordes of Carismia; and
sent deputies to the leaders of these barbarians, promising to
abandon Palestine to them, if they subdued it. This
proposition was accepted with joy, and 20,000 horsemen,
animated by a thirst for booty and slaughter, hastened from
the further parts of Mesopotamia, disposed to be subservient
to the vengeance or anger of the Egyptian monarch. On their
march they ravaged the territory of Tripoli and the
principality of Galilee, and the flames which everywhere
accompanied their steps announced their arrival to the
inhabitants of Jerusalem. Fortifications scarcely commenced,
and the small number of warriors in the holy city, left not
the least hope of being able to repel the unexpected attacks
of such a formidable enemy.
{1886}
The whole population of Jerusalem resolved to fly, under the
guidance of the knights of the Hospital and the Temple. There
only remained in the city the sick and a few inhabitants who
could not make their minds up to abandon their homes and their
infirm kindred. The Carismians soon arrived, and having
destroyed a few intrenchments that had been made in their
route, they entered Jerusalem sword in hand, massacred all
they met, and … had recourse to a most odious stratagem to
lure back the inhabitants who had taken flight. They raised
the standards of the cross upon every tower, and set all the
bells ringing." The retreating Christians were deceived. They
persuaded themselves that a miracle had been wrought; "that
God had taken pity on his people, and would not permit the
city of Christ to be defiled by the presence of a sacrilegious
horde. Seven thousand fugitives, deceived by this hope,
returned to Jerusalem and gave themselves up to the fury of
the Carismians, who put them all to the sword. Torrents of
blood flowed through the streets and along the roads. A troop
of nuns, children, and aged people, who had sought refuge in
the church of the Holy Sepulchre, were massacred at the foot
of the altars. The Carismians finding nothing among the living
to satisfy their fury, burst open the sepulchres, and gave the
coffins and remains of the dead up to the flames; the tomb of
Christ, that of Godfrey of Bouillon, the sacred relics of the
martyrs and heroes of the faith,—nothing was respected, and
Jerusalem then witnessed within its walls such cruelties and
profanations as had never taken place in the most barbarous
wars, or in days marked by the anger of God." Subsequently the
Christians of Palestine rallied, united their forces with
those of the Moslem princes of Damascus and Emessa, and gave
battle to the Carismians on the plains of Gaza; but they
suffered a terrible defeat, leaving 30,000 dead on the field.
Nearly all Palestine was then at the mercy of the savages, and
Damascus was speedily subjugated. But the sultan of Cairo,
beginning to fear the allies he had employed, turned his arms
sharply against them, defeated them in two successive battles,
and history tells nothing more of the career of these last
adventurers of the Carismian or Khuarezmian name.
J. F. Michaud,
History of the Crusades,
book 13.
ALSO IN:
C. G. Addison,
The Knights Templars,
chapter 6.
JERUSALEM: A. D. 1291.
The end of the Christian kingdom.
The surviving title of "King of Jerusalem."
"Since the death of the Emperor Frederic II. [A. D. 1250], the
baseless throne of Jerusalem had found a claimant in Hugh de
Lusignan, King of Cyprus, who, as lineally descended from
Alice, daughter of Queen Isabella, was, in fact, the next
heir, after failure of issue by the marriage of Frederic and
Iolanta de Brienne. His claims were opposed by the partisans
of Charles of Anjou, King of the Sicilies,—that wholesale
speculator in diadems. … He rested his claim upon the double
pretensions of a papal title to all the forfeited dignities of
the imperial house of Hohenstauffen, and of a bargain with
Mary of Antioch; whose rights, although she was descended only
from a younger sister of Alice, he had eagerly purchased. But
the prior title of the house of Cyprus was more generally
recognised in Palestine; the coronation of Hugh had been
celebrated at Tyre; and the last idle pageant of regal state
in Palestine was exhibited by the race of Lusignan. At length
the final storm of Mussulman war broke upon the phantom king
and his subjects. It was twice provoked by the aggressions of
the Latins themselves, in plundering the peaceable Moslem
traders, who resorted, on the faith of treaties, to the
Christian marts on the Syrian coast. After a vain attempt to
obtain redress for the first of these violations of
international law, Keladun, the reigning sultan of Egypt and
Syria, revenged the infraction of the existing ten years'
truce by a renewal of hostilities with overwhelming force;
yearly repeated his ravages of the Christian territory; and at
length, tearing the city and county of Tripoli—the last
surviving great fief of the Latin kingdom—from its
dilapidated crown, dictated the terms of peace to its
powerless sovereign (A. D. 1289)." Two years later, a
repetition of lawless outrages on Moslem merchants at Acre
provoked a last wrathful and implacable invasion. "At the head
of an immense army of 200,000 men, the Mameluke prince entered
Palestine, swept the weaker Christian garrisons before him,
and encamped under the towers of Acre (A. D. 1291). That city,
which, since the fall of Jerusalem, had been for a century the
capital of the Latin kingdom, was now become the last refuge
of the Christian population of Palestine. Its defences were
strong, its inhabitants numerous; but any state of society
more vicious, disorderly, and helpless than its condition, can
scarcely be imagined. Within its walls were crowded a
promiscuous multitude, of every European nation, all equally
disclaiming obedience to a general government, and enjoying
impunity for every crime under the nominal jurisdiction of
independent tribunals. Of these there were no less than
seventeen; in which the papal legate, the king of Jerusalem,
the despoiled great feudatories of his realm, the three
military orders, the colonies of the maritime Italian
republics, and the representatives of the princes of the West,
all arrogated sovereign rights, and all abused them by the
venal protection of offenders. … All the wretched
inhabitants who could find such opportunities of escape,
thronged on board the numerous vessels in the harbour, which
set sail for Europe; and the last defence of Acre was
abandoned to about 12,000 men, for the most part the soldiery
of the three military orders. From that gallant chivalry, the
Moslems encountered a resistance worthy of its ancient renown
and of the extremity of the cause for which its triple
fraternity had sworn to die. But the whole force of the
Mameluke empire, in its yet youthful vigour, had been
collected for their destruction." After a fierce siege of
thirty-three days, one of the principal defensive works,
described in contemporary accounts as "the Cursed Tower," was
shattered, and the besiegers entered the city. The cowardly
Lusignan had escaped by a stolen flight the night before. The
Teutonic Knights, the Templars and the Hospitallers stood
their ground with hopeless valor. Of the latter only seven
escaped. "Bursting through the city, the savage victors
pursued to the strand the unarmed and fleeing population, who
had wildly sought a means of escape, which was denied not less
by the fury of the elements than by the want of sufficient
shipping.
{1887}
By the relentless cruelty of their pursuers, the sands and the
waves were dyed with the blood of the fugitives; all who
survived the first horrid massacre were doomed to a hopeless
slavery; and the last catastrophe of the Crusades cost life or
liberty to 60,000 Christians. … The Christian population of
the few maritime towns which had yet been retained fled to
Cyprus, or submitted their necks, without a struggle, to the
Moslem yoke; and, after a bloody contest of two hundred years,
the possession of the Holy Land was finally abandoned to the
enemies of the Cross. The fall of Acre closes the annals of
the Crusades."
Colonel G. Procter,
History of the Crusades,
chapter 5, section 5.
J. F. Michaud,
History of the Crusades,
book 15 (volume 3).
Actual royalty in the legitimate line of the Lusignan family
ends with a queen Charlotte, who was driven from Cyprus in
1464 by her bastard brother James. She made over to the house
of Savoy (one of the members of which she had married) her
rights and the three crowns she wore,—the crown of Armenia
having been added to those of Jerusalem and Cyprus in the
family. "The Dukes of Savoy called themselves Kings of Cyprus
and Jerusalem from the date of Queen Charlotte's settlement;
the Kings of Naples had called themselves Kings of Jerusalem
since the transfer of the rights of Mary of Antioch [see
above], in 1277, to Charles of Anjou; and the title has run on
to the present day in the houses of Spain and Austria, the
Dukes of Lorraine, and the successive dynasties of Naples. …
The Kings of Sardinia continued to strike money as Kings of
Cyprus and Jerusalem, until they became Kings of Italy. There
is no recognized King of Cyprus now; but there are two or
three Kings of Jerusalem; and the Cypriot title is claimed, I
believe, by some obscure branch of the house of Lusignan,
under the will of King James II."
W. Stubbs,
Seventeen Lectures on the
Study of Medieval and Modern History,
lecture 8.
ALSO IN:
C. G. Addison,
The Knights Templars,
chapter 6.
JERUSALEM: A. D. 1299.
The Templars once more in the city.
See CRUSADES: A. D. 1299.
JERUSALEM: A. D. 1516.
Embraced in the Ottoman conquests of Sultan Selim.
See TURKS: A. D. 1481-1520.
JERUSALEM: A. D. 1831.
Taken by Mehemed Ali, Pasha of Egypt.
See TURKS: A. D. 1831-1840.
----------JERUSALEM: End----------
JERUSALEM TALMUD, The.
See TALMUD.
JESUATES, The.
"The Jesuates, so called from their custom of incessantly
crying through the streets, 'Praised be Jesus Christ,' were
founded by John Colombino, … a native of Siena. … The
congregation was suppressed … by Clement IX., because some
of the houses of the wealthy 'Padri dell' acqua vite,' as they
were called, engaged in the business of distilling liquors and
practising pharmacy (1668)."
J. Alzog,
Manual of Universal Church History,
volume 3, page 149.
----------JESUITS: Start--------
JESUITS: A. D. 1540-1556.
Founding of the Society of Jesus.
System of its organization.
Its principles and aims.
"Experience had shown that the old monastic orders were no
longer sufficient. … About 1540, therefore, an idea began to
be entertained at Rome that a new order was needed; the plan
was not to abolish the old ones, but to found new ones which
should better answer the required ends. The most important of
them was the Society of Jesus. But in this case the moving
cause did not proceed from Rome. Among the wars of Charles V.
we must recur to the first contest at Navarra, in 1521. It was
on this occasion, in defending Pamplona against the French,
that Loyola received the wound which was to cause the monkish
tendency to prevail over the chivalrous element in his nature.
A kind of Catholicism still prevailed in Spain which no longer
existed anywhere else. Its vigour may be traced to the fact
that during the whole of the Middle Ages it was always in
hostile contact with Islam, with the Mohammedan infidels. The
crusades here had never come to an end. … As yet untainted
by heresy, and suffering from no decline, in Spain,
Catholicism was as eager for conquest as it had been in all
the West in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. It was from
the nation possessing this temperament that the founder of the
order of the Jesuits sprang. Ignatius Loyola (born 1491) was a
Spanish knight, possessing the two-fold tendencies which
distinguish the knighthood of the Middle Ages. He was a
gallant swordsman, delighting in martial feats and romantic
love adventures; but he was at the same time animated by a
glowing enthusiasm for the Church and her supremacy, even
during the early period of his life. These two tendencies were
striving together in his character, until the event took place
which threw him upon a bed of suffering. No sooner was he
compelled to renounce his worldly knighthood, than he was sure
that he was called upon to found a new order of spiritual
knighthood, like that of which he had read in the chivalrous
romance, 'Amadis.' Entirely unaffected by the Reformation,
what he understood by this was a spiritual brotherhood in the
true mediæval sense, which should convert the heathen in the
newly-discovered countries of the world. With all the zeal of
a Spaniard he decided to live to the Catholic Church alone; he
chastised his body with penances and all kinds of privations,
made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and, in order to complete his
defective education, he visited the university of Paris; it
was among his comrades there that he formed the first
associations out of which the order was afterwards formed.
Among these was Jacob Lainez; he was Loyola's
fellow-countryman, the organizing head who was to stamp his
impress upon the order. … Then came the spread of the new
doctrines, the mighty progress of Protestantism. No one who
was heartily attached to the old Church could doubt that there
was work for such an association, for the object now in hand
was not to make Christians of the aboriginal inhabitants of
Central America, but to reconquer the apostate members of the
Romish Church. About 1539 Loyola came with his fraternity to
Rome. He did not find favour in all circles; the old orders
regarded the new one with jealousy and mistrust; but Pope Paul
III. (1534-49) did not allow himself to be misled, and in 1540
gave the fraternity his confirmation, thus constituting
Loyola's followers an order, which, on its part, engaged 'to
obey in all things the reigning Pope—to go into any country,
to Turks, heathen, or heretics, or to whomsoever he might send
them, at once, unconditionally, without question or reward.'
It is from this time that the special history of the order
begins.
{1888}
During the next year Loyola was chosen the first general of
the order, an office which he held until his death (1541-56).
He was succeeded by Lainez. He was less enthusiastic than his
predecessor, had a cooler head, and was more reasonable; he
was the man for diplomatic projects and complete and
systematic organization. The new order differed in several
respects from any previously existing one, but it entirely
corresponded to the new era which had begun for the Romish
Church. … The construction of the new order was based and
carried out on a monarchical-military system. The territories
of the Church were divided into provinces; at the head of each
of these was a provincial; over the provincials, and chosen by
them, the general, who commanded the soldiers of Christ, and
was entrusted with dictatorial power, limited only by the
opinions of three judges, assistants or admonitors. The
general has no superior but the Pope, with whom he
communicates directly; he appoints and dismisses all
officials, issues orders as to the administration of the
order, and rules with undisputed sway. The absolute monarchy
which was assigned to the Pope by the Council of Trent, was
conferred by him on the general of the Jesuits. Among the four
vows of poverty, chastity, obedience, and subjection to the
Pope, obedience was the soul of all. To learn and practise
this physically and mentally, up to the point where, according
to the Jesuit expression, a man becomes 'tanquam lignum et
cadaver,' was the ruling principle of the institution. …
Entire renunciation of the will and judgment in relation to
everything commanded by the superior, blind obedience,
unconditional subjection, constitute their ideal. There was
but one exception, but even in this there was a reservation.
It was expressly stated that there can be no obligation 'ad
peccatum mortale vel veniale,' to sinful acts of greater or
less importance, 'except when enjoined by the superior, in the
name of Jesus Christ,' 'vel in virtute obedientiæ,'—an
elastic doctrine which may well be summed up in the dictum
that 'the end justifies the means.' Of course, all the members
of this order had to renounce all ties of family, home, and
country, and it was expressly enjoined. … Of the vow of
poverty it is said, in the 'Summarium' of the constitution of
the order, that it must be maintained as a 'murus religionis.
No one shall have any property; everyone must be content with
the meanest furniture and fare, and, if necessity or command
require it, he must be ready to beg his bread from door to
door ('ostiatim mendicare'). The external aspect of members of
the order, their speech and silence, gestures, gait, garb, and
bearing shall indicate the prescribed purity of soul. … On
all these and many other points, the new order only laid
greater stress on the precepts which were to be found among
the rules of other orders, though in the universal
demoralisation of the monastic life they had fallen into
disuse. But it decidedly differed from all the others in the
manner in which it aimed at obtaining sway in every sphere and

every aspect of life. Himself without home or country, and not
holding the doctrines of any political party, the disciple of
Jesus renounced everything which might alienate him among
varying nationalities, pursuing various political aims. Then
he did not confine his labours to the pulpit and the
confessional; he gained an influence over the rising
generation by a systematic attention to education, which had
been shamefully neglected by the other orders. He devoted
himself to education from the national schools up to the
academic chair, and by no means confined himself to the sphere
of theology. This was a principle of immense importance. …
It is a true saying, that 'he who gains the youth possesses
the future'; and by devoting themselves to the education of
youth, the Jesuits secured a future to the Church more surely
than by any other scheme that could have been devised. What
the schoolmasters were for the youth, the confessors were for
those of riper years; what the clerical teachers were for the
common people, the spiritual directors and confidants were for
great lords and rulers—for the Jesuits aspired to a place at
the side of the great, and at gaining the confidence of kings.
It was not long before they could boast of astonishing
success."
L. Häusser,
The Period of the Reformation,
chapter 20.
"The Society, in 1556, only 16 years after its commencement,
counted as many as twelve provinces, 100 houses, and upwards
of 1,000 members, dispersed over the whole known world. Their
two most conspicuous and important establishments were the
Collegio Romano and the German College. They already were in
possession of many chairs, and soon monopolised the right of
teaching, which gave them a most overwhelming influence."
G. B. Nicolini,
History of the Jesuits,
page 90.
ALSO IN:
I. Taylor,
Loyola and Jesuitism in its Rudiments.
S. Rose,
Ignatius Loyola and the Early Jesuits.
T. Hughes,
Loyola and the Educational System of the Jesuits.
See, also, EDUCATION, RENAISSANCE.
JESUITS: A. D. 1542-1649.
The early Jesuit Missionaries and their labors.
"In 1542, Xavier landed at Goa, the capital of the Portuguese
colony, on the western coast of Hindostan. He took lodgings at
the hospital, and mingled with the poor. He associated also
with the rich, and even played with them at cards, acting
piously upon the motto of the order, 'Ad majorem Dei gloriam.'
Having thus won good-will to himself, he went into the
streets, with his hand-bell and crucifix, and, having rung the
one, he held up the other, exhorting the multitudes to accept
that religion of which it was the emblem. His great facility
in acquiring foreign languages helped him much. He visited
several times the pearl-fisheries on the Malabar coast,
remaining at one time thirteen months, and planting forty-five
churches. Cape Comorin, Travancore, Meliapore, the Moluccas,
Malacca, and other ports of India, and finally the distant
island of Japan—where Christianity was [accepted—see JAPAN:
A. D. 1540-1686] … —received his successive visits. Leaving
two Jesuits on the island, he returned to settle some matters
at Goa, which done, he sailed for China, but died at the
island of Sancian, a few leagues from the city of Canton, in
1552—ten years only after his arrival in India. He had in
this time established an inquisition and a college at Goa.
Numbers of the society, whom he had wisely distributed, had
been sent to his aid; and the Christians in India were
numbered by hundreds of thousands before the death of this
'Apostle of the Indies.' It has even been said, that he was
the means of converting more persons in Asia than the church
had lost by the Reformation in Europe.
{1889}
The empire of China, which Xavier was not allowed to enter,
was visited, half a century later, by the Jesuit Matthew
Ricci, who introduced his religion by means of his great skill
in science and art, especially mathematics and drawing [see
CHINA: A. D. 1294-1882]. He assumed the garb of a mandarin
—associated with the higher classes—dined with the
Emperor—allowed those who received Christianity to retain any
rites of their own religion to which they were attached—and
died in 1610, bequeathing and recommending his policy to
others. This plan of accommodation was far more elaborately
carried out by Robert Nobili, who went to Madura, in southern
Hindostan, as a missionary of the order in 1606. He had
observed the obstacle which caste threw in the way of
missionary labor, and resolved to remove it. He presented
himself as a foreign Brahmin, and attached himself to that
class. They had a tradition, that there once had been four
roads to truth in India, one of which they had lost. This he
professed to restore. He did no violence to their existing
ideas or institutions, but simply gave them other
interpretations, and in three years he had seventy converted
Brahmins about him. From this time he went on gathering crowds
of converts, soon numbering 150,000. This facile policy,
however, attracted the notice of the other religious orders,
was loudly complained of at Rome, and, after almost an entire
century of agitation, was condemned in 1704 by a special
legation, appointed by Clement XI. to inquire into the matter
of complaint. … The attention of the society was early
directed to our own continent, and its missions everywhere
anticipated the settlements. The most remarkable missions were
in South America. Missionaries had been scattered over the
whole continent, everywhere making converts, but doing nothing
for the progress of the order. Aquaviva was general. This
shrewd man saw the disadvantage of the policy, and at once
applied the remedy. He directed, that, leaving only so many
missionaries scattered over the continent as should be
absolutely necessary, the main force should be concentrated
upon a point. Paraguay was chosen. The missionaries formed
what were called reductions—that is, villages into which the
Indians were collected from their roving life, taught the
ruder arts of civilization, and some of the rites and duties
of the Christian religion. These villages were regularly laid
out with streets, running each way from a public square,
having a Church, work-shops and dwellings. Each family had a
small piece of land assigned for cultivation, and all were
reduced to the most systematic habits of industry and good
order. … The men were trained to arms, and all the elements
of an independent empire were fast coming into being. In 1632,
thirty years after the starting of this system, Paraguay had
twenty reductions, averaging 1,000 families each, which at a
moderate estimate, would give a population of 100,000, and
they still went on prospering until three times this number
are, by some, said to have been reached. The Jesuits started,
in California, in 1642, the same system, which they fully
entered upon in 1679. This, next to Paraguay, became their
most successful mission."
A Historical Sketch of the Jesuits
(Putnam's Magazine, September, 1856).
In 1632 the Jesuits entered on their mission work in Canada,
or New France, where they supplanted the Récollet friars. "In
1640 Montreal, the site of which had been already indicated by
Champlain in 1611, was founded, that there might be a nearer
rendezvous than Quebec for the converted Indians. At its
occupation a solemn mass was celebrated under a tent, and in
France itself the following February a general supplication
was offered up that the Queen of Angels would take the Island
of Montreal under her protection. In the August of this year a
general meeting of French settlers and Indians took place at
Montreal, and the festival of the Assumption was solemnised at
the island. The new crusading spirit took full possession of
the enthusiastic French people, and the niece of Cardinal
Richelieu founded a hospital for the natives between the
Kennebec and Lake Superior, to which young and nobly-born
hospital nuns from Dieppe offered their services. Plans were
made for establishing mission posts, not only on the north
amongst the Algonkins, but to the south of Luke Huron, in
Michigan and at Green Bay, and so on as far as the regions to
the west. The maps of the Jesuits prove that before 1660 they
had traced the waters of Lake Erie and Lake Superior and had
seen Lake Michigan. The Huron mission embraced principally the
country lying between Lake Simcoe and Georgian Bay, building
its stations on the rivers and shores. But the French
missionaries, however much they might desire it, could not
keep outside the intertribal strifes of the natives around
them. Succeeding to Champlain's policy, they continued to aid
the Algonkins and Hurons against their inveterate enemies the
Iroquois. The Iroquois retaliated by the most horrible cruelty
and revenge. There was no peace along the borders of this wild
country, and missionaries and colonists carried their lives in
their hands. In 1648 St. Joseph, a Huron mission town on the
shores of Lake Simcoe, was burned down and destroyed by the
Iroquois, and Père Daniel, the Jesuit leader, killed under
circumstances of great atrocity. In 1649 St. Ignace, a station
at the corner of Georgian Bay, was sacked, and there the pious
Brebeuf met his end, after having suffered the most horrible
tortures the Indians could invent. Brebeuf, after being hacked
in the face and burnt all over the body with torches and
red-hot iron, was scalped alive, and died after three hours'
suffering. His companion, the gentle Gabriel Lallemand,
endured terrible tortures for seventeen hours."
W. P. Greswell,
History of the Dominion of Canada,
chapter 6.
The Hurons were dispersed and their nation destroyed by these
attacks of the Iroquois. "With the fall of the Hurons fell the
best hope of the Canadian mission. They, and the stable and
populous communities around them, had been the rude material
from which the Jesuit would have formed his Christian empire
in the wilderness; but, one by one, these kindred peoples were
uprooted and swept away, while the neighboring Algonquins, to
whom they had been a bulwark, were involved with them in a
common ruin. The land of promise was turned to a solitude and
a desolation. There was still work in hand, it is true,—vast
regions to explore, and countless heathens to snatch from
perdition; but these, for the most part, were remote and
scattered hordes, from whose conversion it was vain to look
for the same solid and decisive results. In a measure, the
occupation of the Jesuits was gone.
{1890}
Some of them went home, 'well resolved,' writes the Father
Superior, 'to return to the combat at the first sound of the
trumpet'; while of those who remained, about twenty in number,
several soon fell victims to famine, hardship, and the
Iroquois. A few years more, and Canada ceased to be a mission;
political and commercial interests gradually became ascendant,
and the story of Jesuit propagandism was interwoven with her
civil and military annals."
F. Parkman,
The Jesuits in North America,
chapter 34.
See, also,
CANADA: A. D. 1634-1652.
JESUITS: A. D. 1558.
Mission founded in Abyssinia.
See ABYSSINIA: A. D. 15TH-19TH CENTURIES.
JESUITS: A. D. 1572-1603.
Persecution in England under Elizabeth.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1572-1603.
JESUITS: A. D. 1573-1592.
Change in the statutes of the Order on demands from Spain.
"At the first establishment of the Order, the elder and
already educated men, who had just entered it, were for the
most part Spaniards; the members joining it from other nations
were chiefly young men, whose characters had yet to be formed.
It followed naturally that the government of the society was,
for the first ten years, almost entirely in Spanish hands. The
first general congregation was composed of twenty-five
members, eighteen of whom were Spaniards. The first three
generals belonged to the same nation. After the death of the
third, Borgia, in the year 1573, it was once more a Spaniard,
Polanco, who had the best prospect of election. It was however
manifest that his elevation would not have been regarded
favourably, even in Spain itself. There were many new converts
in the society who were Christianized Jews. Polanco also
belonged to this class, and it was not thought desirable that
the supreme authority in a body so powerful, and so
monarchically constituted, should be confided to such hands.
Pope Gregory XIV., who had received certain intimations on
this subject, considered a change to be expedient on other
grounds also. When a deputation presented itself before him
from the congregation assembled to elect their general,
Gregory inquired how many votes were possessed by each nation;
the reply showed that Spain held more than all the others put
together. He then asked from which nation the generals of the
order had hitherto been taken. He was told that there had been
three, all Spaniards. 'It will be just, then,' replied
Gregory, 'that for once you should choose one from among the
other nations.' He even proposed a candidate for their
election. The Jesuits opposed themselves for a moment to this
suggestion, as a violation of their privileges; but concluded
by electing the very man proposed by the pontiff. This was
Eberhard Mercurianus. A material change was at once perceived,
as the consequence of this choice. Mercurianus, a weak and
irresolute man, resigned the government of affairs, first
indeed to a Spaniard again, but afterwards to a Frenchman, his
official admonitor; factions were formed, one expelling the
other from the offices of importance, and the ruling powers of
the Order now began to meet occasional resistance from its
subordinate members. But a circumstance of much higher moment
was, that on the next vacancy—in the year 1581—this office
was conferred on Claudius Acquaviva, a Neapolitan, belonging
to a house previously attached to the French party, a man of
great energy, and only thirty-eight years old. The Spaniards
then thought they perceived that their nation, by which the
society had been founded and guided on its early path, was now
to be forever excluded from the generalship. Thereupon they
became discontented and refractory, and conceived the design
of making themselves less dependent on Rome. … They first
had recourse to the national spiritual authority of their own
country—the Inquisition. … One of the discontented Jesuits,
impelled, as he affirmed, by a scruple of conscience, accused
his order of concealing, and even remitting, transgressions of
the kind so reserved, when the criminal was one of their
society. The Inquisition immediately caused the Provincial
implicated, together with his most active associates, to be
arrested. Other accusations being made in consequence of these
arrests, the Inquisition commanded that the statutes of the
order should be placed before it, and proceeded to make
further seizures of parties accused. … The Inquisition was,
however, competent to inflict a punishment on the criminal
only: it could not prescribe changes in the regulations of the
society. When the affair, therefore, had proceeded thus far,
the discontented members applied to the king also, assailing
him with long memorials, wherein they complained of the
defects in their constitution. The character of this
constitution had never been agreeable to Philip II.; he used
to say that he could see through all the other orders, but
that the order of Jesuits he could not understand. … He at
once commanded Manrique, bishop of Carthagena, to subject the
Order to a visitation, with particular reference to these
points. … The character of Sixtus V. made it particularly
easy for Acquaviva to excite the antipathies of that pontiff
against the proceedings of the Spaniards. Pope Sixtus had
formed the hope, as we know, of rendering Rome, more decidedly
than it ever yet was, the metropolis of Christendom. Acquaviva
assured him, that the object really laboured for in Spain was
no other than increased independence of Rome. Pope Sixtus
hated nothing so much as illegitimate birth; and Acquaviva
caused him to be informed that Manrique, the bishop selected
as 'Visitator' of the Jesuits, was illegitimate. These were
reasons sufficient to make Sixtus recall the assent he had
already given to the visitation. He even summoned the case of
the provincial before the tribunals of Rome. From his
successor, Gregory XIV., the general succeeded in obtaining a
formal confirmation of the rule of the order. But his
antagonists also were unyielding and crafty. They perceived
that the general must be attacked in the court of Rome itself.
They availed themselves of his momentary absence. … In the
summer of 1592, at the request of the Spanish Jesuits and
Philip II., but without the knowledge of Acquaviva, the
pontiff commanded that a general congregation should be held.
Astonished and alarmed, Acquaviva hastened back. To the
generals of the Jesuits these 'Congregations' were no less
inconvenient than were the Convocations of the Church to the
popes; and if his predecessors were anxious to avoid them, how
much more cause had Acquaviva, against whom there prevailed so
active an enmity! But he was soon convinced that the
arrangement was irrevocable; he therefore resumed his
composure and said, 'We are obedient sons; let the will of the
holy father be done.' …
{1891}
Philip of Spain had demanded some changes, and had
recommended others for consideration. On two things he'
insisted: the resignation of certain papal privileges; those
of reading forbidden books, for example, and of granting
absolution for the crime of heresy; and a law, by virtue of
which every novice who entered the order should surrender
whatever patrimonial rights he might possess, and should even
resign all his benefices. These were matters in regard to
which the order came into collision with the Inquisition and
the civil government. After some hesitation, the demands of
the king were complied with, and principally through the
influence of Acquaviva himself. But the points recommended by
Philip for consideration were of much higher moment. First of
all came the questions, whether the authority of the superiors
should not be limited to a certain period; and whether a
general congregation should not be held at certain fixed
intervals? The very essence and being of the institute, the
rights of absolute sovereignty, were here brought into
question. Acquaviva was not on this occasion disposed to
comply. After an animated discussion, the congregation
rejected these propositions of Philip; but the pope, also, was
convinced of their necessity. What had been refused to the
king was now commanded by the pope. By the plenitude of his
apostolic power, he determined and ordained that the superiors
and rectors should be changed every third year; and that, at
the expiration of every sixth year, a general congregation
should be assembled. It is, indeed, true that the execution of
these ordinances did not effect so much as had been hoped from
them. … It was, nevertheless, a very serious blow to the
society, that it had been compelled, by internal revolt and
interference from without, to a change in its statutes."
L. Ranke,
History of the Popes,
book 6, section 9 (volume 2).
JESUITS: A. D. 1581-1641.
Hostility of the Paulistas of Brazil.
Opposition to enslavement of the Indians.
See BRAZIL: A. D. 1531-1641.
JESUITS: A. D. 1595.
Expulsion from Paris.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1593-1598.
JESUITS: A. D. 1606.
Exclusion from Venice for half a century.
See PAPACY: A. D. 1605-1700.
JESUITS: A. D. 1653-1660.
First controversy and conflict with the Jansenists.
See PORT ROYAL AND THE JANSENISTS: A. D. 1602-1660.
JESUITS: A. D. 1702-1715.
The renewed conflict with Jansenism in France.
The Bull Unigenitus.
See PORT ROYAL AND THE JANSENISTS: A. D. 1702-1715.
JESUITS: A. D. 1757-1773.
Suppression of the Society in Portugal and the Portuguese
dominions.
In 1757, a series of measures intended to break the power, if
not to end the existence, of the Society of Jesus, in Portugal
and the Portuguese dominions, was undertaken by the great
Portuguese minister, Carvalho, better known by his later title
as the Marquis of Pombal. "It is not necessary to speculate on
the various motives which induced Carvalho to attack the
Jesuits, but the principal cause lay in the fact that they
were wealthy and powerful, and therefore a dangerous force in
an absolutist monarchy. It must be remembered that the Jesuits
of the 18th century formed a very different class of men to
their predecessors. They were no longer intrepid missionary
pioneers, but a corporation of wealthy traders, who made use
of their spiritual position to further the cause of their
commerce. They had done a great work in America by opening up
the interior of Brazil and converting the natives, and their
administration of Paraguay, one of the most interesting
achievements in the whole history of Christianity, was without
doubt a blessing to the people. But by the middle of the 18th
century they had gone too far. It was one thing to convert the
natives of Brazil, and another to absorb much of the wealth of
that country, in doing which they prejudiced not only the
Crown but the Portuguese people, whom they kept from settling
in the territory under their rule. Whether it was a sufficient
reason for Carvalho to attack the order, because it was
wealthy and powerful, and had departed from its primitive
simplicity, is a question for everyone to decide for
themselves, but that this was the reason, and that the various
excuses alleged by the admirers of the great minister are
without foundation, is an undoubted fact. On September 19,
1757, the first important blow was struck, when the king's
Jesuit confessor was dismissed, and all Jesuits were forbidden
to come to Court. Carvalho, in the name of the King of
Portugal, also formally denounced the order at Rome, and
Benedict XIV., the then Pope, appointed the Cardinal de
Saldanha, a friend of the minister, Visitor and Reformer of
the Society of Jesus. The cardinal did not take long in making
up his mind, and May 15, 1758, he forbade the Jesuits to
engage in trade. An attempt upon the king's life, which
shortly followed this measure, gave the minister the
opportunity he wanted for urging the suppression of the famous
society. The history of the Tavora plot, which culminated in
this attempt, is one of the most mysterious affairs in the
whole history of Portugal. … The three leaders of the plot
were the Duke of Aveiro, a descendant of John II., and one of
the greatest noblemen in Portugal, the Marquis of Tavora, who
had filled with credit the post of Governor-general of India,
and the Count of Atouguia, a descendant of the gallant Dom
Luis de Athaide, the defender of Goa; but the heart and soul
of the conspiracy was the Marchioness of Tavora, a beautiful
and ambitious woman, who was bitterly offended because her
husband had not been made a duke. The confessor of this lady
was a Jesuit named Gabriel Malagrida. … The evidence on all
sides is most contradictory, and all that is certain is that
the king was fired at and wounded on the night of September 3,
1758; and that in the following January, the three noblemen
who have been mentioned, the Marchioness of Tavora, Malagrida
with seven other Jesuits, and many other individuals of all
ranks of life, were arrested as implicated in the attempt to
murder. The laymen had but a short trial and, together with
the marchioness, were publicly executed ten days after their
arrest. King Joseph certainly believed that the real culprits
had been seized, and in his gratitude he created Carvalho
Count of Oeyras, and encouraged him to pursue his campaign
against the Jesuits. On January 19, 1759, the estates
belonging to the society were sequestrated; and on September
3rd, all its members were expelled from Portugal, and
directions were sent to the viceroys of India and Brazil to
expel them likewise. The news of this bold stroke was received
with admiration everywhere, except at Rome, and it became noised
abroad that a great minister was ruling in Portugal. …
{1892}
In 1764 the Jesuit priest Malagrida was burnt alive, not as a
traitor but as a heretic and imposter, on account of some
crazy tractates he had written. The man was regarded as a
martyr, and all communication between Portugal and the Holy
See was broken off for two years, while the Portuguese
minister exerted all his influence with the Courts of France
and Spain to procure the entire suppression of the society
which he hated. The king supported him consistently, and after
another attempt upon his life in 1769, which the minister as
usual attributed to the Jesuits, King Joseph created his
faithful servant Marquis of Pombal, by which title he is best
known to fame. The prime ministers of France and Spain
cordially acquiesced in the hatred of the Jesuits, for both
the Duc de Choiseul and the Count d'Aranda had something of
Pombal's spirit in them, and imitated his policy; in both
countries the society, which on its foundation had done so
much for Catholicism and Christianity, was proscribed, and the
worthy members treated with as much rigour as the unworthy;
and finally in 1773 Pope Clement XIV. solemnly abolished the
Society of Jesus. King Joseph did not long survive this
triumph of his minister, for he died on February 24, 1777, and
the Marquis of Pombal, then an old man of 77, was at once
dismissed from office."
H. M. Stephens,
The Story of Portugal,
chapter 16.
ALSO IN:
G. B. Nicolini,
History of the Jesuits,
chapter 15.
T. Griesinger,
The Jesuits,
book 6, chapter 4 (volume 2).
JESUITS: A. D. 1761-1769.
Proceedings against the Order in the Parliament of Paris.
Suppression in France, Spain, Bavaria, Parma, Modena, Venice.
Demands on the Pope for the abolition of the Society.
"Father Antoine Lavalette, 'procureur' of the Jesuit Missions
in the Antilles, resided in that capacity at St. Pierre in the
island of Martinique. He was a man of talent, energy, and
enterprise; and, following an example by no means uncommon in
the Society, he had been for many years engaged in mercantile
transactions on an extensive scale, and with eminent success.
It was an occupation expressly prohibited to missionaries; but
the Jesuits were in the habit of evading the difficulty by
means of an ingenious fiction. Lavalette was in correspondence
with the principal commercial firms in France, and
particularly with that of Lioncy Brothers and Gouffre, of
Marseilles. He made frequent consignments of merchandise to
their house, which were covered by bills of exchange, drawn in
Martinique and accepted by them. For a time the traffic
proceeded prosperously; but it so happened that upon the
breaking out of the Seven Years' War, several ships belonging
to Lavalette, richly freighted with West Indian produce, were
captured by the English cruisers, and their cargoes
confiscated. The immediate loss fell upon Lioncy and Gouffre,
to whom these vessels were consigned," and they were driven to
bankruptcy, the General of the Society of Jesus refusing to be
responsible for the obligations of his subordinate, Father
Lavalette. "Under these circumstances the creditors determined
to attack the Jesuit community as a corporate body," and the
latter were so singularly unwary, for once, as not only to
contest the claim before the Parliament of Paris, but to
appeal to the constitutions of their Society in support of
their contention, that each college was independent in the
matter of temporal property, and that no corporate
responsibility could exist. "The Parliament at once demanded
that the constitutions thus referred to should he examined.
The Jesuits were ordered to furnish a copy of them; they
obeyed. … The compulsory production of these mysterious
records, which had never before been inspected by any but
Jesuit eyes, was an event of crucial significance. It was the
turning-point of the whole affair; and its consequences were
disastrous." As a first consequence, "the court condemned the
General of the Jesuits, and in his person the whole Society
which he governed, to acquit the bills of exchange still
outstanding, together with interest and damages, within the
space of a year from the date of the 'arrêt.' In default of
payment the debt was made recoverable upon the common property
of the Order, excepting only the endowments specially
restricted to particular colleges. The delight of the public,
who were present on the occasion in great numbers, 'was
excessive,' says Barbier, 'and even indecent.'" As a second
consequence, the Parliament, on the 6th of August, 1761,
"condemned a quantity of publications by the Jesuits, dating
from the year 1590 downwards, to be torn and burnt by the
executioner and the next day this was duly carried out in the
court of the Palais de Justice. Further, the 'arrêt'
prohibited the king's subjects from entering the said Society;
forbade the fathers to give instruction, private or public, in
theology, philosophy, or humanity; and ordered their schools
and colleges to be closed. The accusation brought against
their books was … that of teaching 'abominable and murderous
doctrine,' of justifying sedition, rebellion, and regicide.
… The Government replied to these bold measures by ordering
the Parliament to suspend the execution of its 'arrêts' for
the space of a year. The Parliament affected to obey, but
stipulated, in registering the letters-patent, that the delay
should not extend beyond the 1st of April, 1762, and made
other provisions which left them virtually at liberty to
proceed as they might think proper. The Jesuits … relied too
confidently on the protection of the Crown. … But the
prestige of the monarchy was now seriously impaired, and it
was no longer wise or safe for a King of France to undertake
openly the defence of any institution which had incurred a
deliberate sentence of condemnation from the mass of his
people." In November, 1761, a meeting of French prelates was
summoned by the Royal Council to consider and report upon
several questions relative to the utility of the Society of
Jesus, the character of its teaching and conduct, and the
modifications, if any, which should be proposed as to the
extent of authority exercised by the General of the Society.
The bishops, by a large majority, made a report favorable to
the Jesuits, but recommended, "as reasonable concessions to
public opinion, certain alterations in its statutes and
practical administration. … This project of compromise was
forwarded to Rome for the consideration of the Pope and the
General; and Louis gave them to understand, through his
ambassador, that upon no other conditions would it be possible
to stem the tide of opposition, and to maintain the Jesuits as
a body corporate in France.
{1893}
It was now that the memorable reply was made, either by the
General Ricci, or, according to other accounts, by Pope
Clement XIII. himself—Sint ut sunt, aut non sint'; 'Let them
remain as they are, or let them exist no longer.'" Even had
the proposed reform been accepted, "its success was
problematical; but its rejection sealed the fate of the Order.
Louis, notwithstanding the ungracious response from Rome,
proposed his scheme of conciliation to the Parliament in
March, 1762, and annulled at the same time all measures
adverse to the Jesuits taken since the 1st of August
preceding. The Parliament, secretly encouraged by the Duc de
Choiseul, refused to register this edict; the king, after some
hesitation, withdrew it; and no available resource remained to
shield the Order against its impending destiny. The
Parliaments, both of Paris and the Provinces, laid the axe to
the root without further delay. By an 'arrêt' of the 1st of
April, 1762, the Jesuits were expelled from their 84 colleges
in the ressort of the Parliament of Paris, and the example was
followed by the provincial tribunals of Rouen, Rennes, Metz,
Bordeaux, and Aix. The Society was now assailed by a general
chorus of invective and execration. … The final blow was
struck by the Parliament of Paris on the 6th of August, 1762.
… The sentence then passed condemned the Society as
'inadmissible, by its nature, in any civilized State, inasmuch
as it was contrary to the law of nature, subversive of
authority spiritual and temporal, and introduced, under the
veil of religion, not an Order sincerely aspiring to
evangelical perfection, but rather a political body, of which
the essence consists in perpetual attempts to attain, first,
absolute independence, and in the end, supreme authority.' …
The decree concludes by declaring the vows of the Jesuits
illegal and void, forbidding them to observe the rules of the
Order, to wear its dress, or to correspond with its members.
They were to quit their houses within one week, and were to
renounce, upon oath, all connection with the Society, upon
pain of being disqualified for any ecclesiastical charge or
public employment. The provincial Parliaments followed the
lead of the capital, though in some few instances the decree
of suppression was opposed, and carried only by a small
majority; while at Besançon and Douai the decision was in
favour of the Society. In Lorraine, too, under the peaceful
government of Stanislas Leczinski, and in Alsace, where they
were powerfully protected by Cardinal de Rohan, Bishop of
Strasburg, the Jesuits were left unmolested. … The
suppression of the Jesuits—the most important act of the
administration of the Duc de Choiseul—was consummated by a
royal ordonnance of November, 1764, to which Louis did not
give his consent without mistrust and regret. It decreed that
the Society should cease to exist throughout his Majesty's
dominions; but it permitted the ex-Jesuits to reside in France
as private citizens, and to exercise their ecclesiastical
functions under the jurisdiction of the diocesans. … Almost
immediately afterwards, on the 7th of January, 1765. appeared
the bull 'Apostolicum,' by which Clement XIII. condemned, with
all the weight of supreme and infallible authority, the
measure which had deprived the Holy See of its most valiant
defenders. … The only effect of the intervention of the
Roman Curia was to excite further ebullitions of hostility
against the prostrate Order. Charles III. of Spain, yielding,
as it is alleged, to the exhortations of the Duc de Choiseul,
abolished it throughout his dominions by a sudden mandate of
April 2, 1767. … The Pope precipitated the final catastrophe
by a further act of imprudence. The young Duke of Parma, a
prince of the house of Bourbon, had excluded the Jesuits from
his duchy, and had published certain ecclesiastical
regulations detrimental to the ancient pretensions of the
Roman See. Clement XIII., reviving an antiquated title in
virtue of which Parma was claimed as a dependent fief of the
Papacy, was rash enough to launch a bull of excommunication
against the Duke, and deprived him of his dominions as a
rebellious vassal. All the Bourbon sovereigns promptly
combined to resent this insult to their family. The Papal Bull
was suppressed at Paris, at Madrid, at Lisbon, at Parma, at
Naples. The Jesuits were expelled from Venice, from Modena,
from Bavaria. The Pontiff was summoned to revoke his
'monitorium'; and on his refusal French troops took possession
of Avignon and the Comtat Venaissin, while the King of Naples
seized Benevento and Pontecorvo. On the 16th of January, 1769,
the ambassadors of Spain, France, and Naples presented a joint
note to the Holy Father, demanding that the Order of Jesus
should be secularised and abolished for ever. Clement, who had
suffered severely from the manifold humiliations and reverses
of his Pontificate, was overwhelmed by this last blow, from
the effects of which he never rallied. He expired almost
suddenly on the 2nd of February, 1769."
W. H. Jervis,
History of the Church of France,
volume 2, chapter 10.
ALSO IN:
T. Griesinger,
The Jesuits,
book 6, chapter 6,
and book 7, chapter 1.
JESUITS: A. D. 1769-1871
Papal suppression and restoration of the Order.
"The attitude of the Roman Catholic Courts was so threatening,
and their influence with the Conclave so powerful, that
Lorenzo Ganganelli was selected [1769] for the triple crown,
as the man best suited for their purposes. Belonging to the
Franciscans, who had ever been antagonistic to the Jesuits, he
had been a follower of the Augustinian theology, and was not
altogether free from Jansenism. The Jesuits even went so far
as to pray publicly in their churches for the conversion of
the Pope. The pontificate of Clement XIV. has been rendered
memorable in history by the Papal decree of July 21, 1773,
which in its policy adopted the maxim of Lorenzo Ricci, the
inflexible General of the Jesuits, 'Sint ut sunt, aut non
sunt'—Let us be as we are, or let us not be! That decree
declared that, from the very origin of the Order, sorrow,
jealousies, and dissensions arose, not only among its own
members but between them and the other religious orders and
their colleges. After further declaring that, urged as its
head by a sense of duty to restore the harmony of the Church,
and feeling convinced that the Society could no longer
subserve the uses for which it was created, and on other
grounds of prudence and governmental wisdom, he by his decree
abolished the Order of Jesuits, its offices, houses, and
institutes. … The other religious orders at Rome were
jealous that Jesuits should have been the confessors of
Sovereigns at Westminster, Madrid, Vienna, Versailles, Lisbon,
and Naples. The influences of the Dominicans, the
Benedictines, and the Oratorians were accordingly exercised
for their suppression. … The Papal Bull 'Dominus Redemptor
noster' was at first resisted by the Jesuits, and their
General, Lorenzo Ricci, was sent to the Castle of St. Angelo.
{1894}
Bernardine Renzi, a female Pythoness, having predicted the
death of the Pope, two Jesuits, Coltrano and Venissa, who were
suspected of having instigated her prophecies, were consigned
to the same prison. All that follows relating to the fate of
Ganganelli is of mere historic interest; his end is shrouded
in mystery, which has been as yet, and is likely to continue,
impenetrable. According to the revelations of Cardinal de
Bernis, Ganganelli was himself apprehensive of dying by
poison, and a sinister rumour respecting a cup of chocolate
with an infusion of 'Aqua de Tofana,' administered by a pious
attendant, was generally prevalent throughout Europe; but the
time has long since passed for an inquest over the deathbed of
Clement XIV."
The Jesuits and their Expulsion from Germany
(Fraser's' Magazine, May, 1873).
"All that follows the publication of the brief—the death of
Ganganelli, the fierce and yet unexhausted disputes about the
last year of his life, and the manner of his death—are to us
indescribably melancholy and repulsive. … We have
conflicting statements, both of which cannot be
true—churchman against churchman—cardinal against
cardinal—even, it should seem, pope against pope. On the one
side there is a triumph, hardly disguised, in the terrors, in
the sufferings, in the madness, which afflicted the later days
of Clement; on the other, the profoundest honour, the deepest
commiseration, for a wise and holy Pontiff, who, but for the
crime of his enemies, might have enjoyed a long reign of peace
and respect and inward satisfaction. There a protracted agony
of remorse in life and anticipated damnation—that damnation,
if not distinctly declared, made dubious or averted only by a
special miracle:—here an apotheosis—a claim, at least, to
canonization. There the judgment of God pronounced in language
which hardly affects regret; here more than insinuations, dark
charges of poison against persons not named, but therefore
involving in the ignominy of possible guilt a large and
powerful party. Throughout the history of the Jesuits it is
this which strikes, perplexes, and appals the dispassionate
student. The intensity with which they were hated surpasses
even the intensity with which they hated. Nor is this depth of
mutual animosity among those or towards those to whom the
Jesuits were most widely opposed, the Protestants, and the
adversaries of all religion; but among Roman Catholics—and
those not always Jansenists or even Gallicans—among the most
ardent assertors of the papal supremacy, monastics of other
orders, parliaments, statesmen, kings, bishops, cardinals.
Admiration and detestation of the Jesuits divide, as far as
feeling is concerned, the Roman Catholic world, with a schism
deeper and more implacable than any which arrays Protestant
against Protestant, Episcopacy and Independency, Calvinism and
Arminianism, Puseyism and Evangelicism. The two parties
counterwork each other, write against each other in terms of
equal acrimony, misunderstand each other, misrepresent each
other, accuse and recriminate upon each other, with the same
reckless zeal, in the same unmeasured language—each
inflexibly, exclusively identifying his own cause with that of
true religion, and involving its adversaries in one sweeping
and remorseless condemnation. To us the question of the death
of Clement XIV. is purely of historical interest. It is
singular enough that Protestant writers are cited as alone
doing impartial justice to the Jesuits and their enemies: the
Compurgators of the 'Company of Jesus' are Frederick II. and
the Encyclopedists. Outcast from Roman Catholic Europe, they
found refuge in Prussia, and in the domains of Catherine II.,
from whence they disputed the validity and disobeyed the
decrees of the Pope."
Clement XIV. and the Jesuits
(Quarterly Review, September, 1848.)
"The Jesuit Order remained in abeyance for a period of
forty-two years, until Pius VII. on his return to Rome, after
his liberation from the captivity he endured under Napoleon I.
at Fontainebleau, issued his brief of August 7, 1814,
'solicitudo omnium,' by which he authorised the surviving
members of the Order again to live according to the rules of
their founder, to admit novices, and to found colleges. With
singular fatuity the Papal Edict for the restoration of the
Jesuits, contradicting its own title, assigns on the face of
the document as the principal reason for its being issued the
recommendation contained in the gracious despatch of August
11, 1800, received from Paul, the then reigning Emperor of the
Russias. We have the histories of all nations concurring that
Paul was notoriously mad, and within six months from the date
of that gracious despatch he was strangled in his palace by
the members of his own Court, as the only possible means, as
they conceived, of rescuing the Empire from his insane and
vicious despotism. In return probably for the successful
intercession of Paul, Thadeus Brzozowski, a Pole by birth but
a Russian subject, was elected the first General of the
restored order. We find a striking comment on his
recommendation in the Imperial Ukase of his successor, the
Emperor Alexander, by which, in June 1817, he banished the
Jesuits from all his dominions. Spain, the scene of their
former ignominious treatment, was, under the degraded rule of
the Ferdinandian dynasty, the first country to which they were
recalled; but they were soon again expelled by the National
Cortes. Our limits here confine us to a simple category of
their subsequent expulsions from Roman Catholic States: from
France in 1831, from Saxony in the same year, from Portugal
again in 1834, from Spain again in 1835, from France again in
1845, from the whole of Switzerland, including the Roman
Catholic Cantons, in 1847, and in 1848 from Bavaria and other
German States. In the Revolution of 1848, they were expelled
from every Italian State, even from the territories of the
Pope; but on the counter Revolution they returned, to be again
expelled in 1859 from Lombardy, Parma, Modena and the
Legations. They have had to endure even a more recent
vicissitude, for, in December 1871, a measure relating to the
vexed question, the Union of Church and State, received the
sanction of the National Council (Bundesrath) of Switzerland,
by which the Jesuits were prohibited from settling in the
country, from interfering even in education, or from founding
or re-establishing colleges throughout the Federal
territories. They have thus within a recent period received
sentence of banishment from almost every Roman Catholic
Government, but they still remain in Rome."
The Jesuits and their Expulsion from Germany
(Fraser's Magazine, May, 1873).
{1895}
JESUITS: A. D. 1847.
The question of Expulsion in Switzerland.
The Sonderbund and the war of religions.
See SWITZERLAND: A. D. 1803-1848.
JESUITS: A. D. 1880.
The law against Jesuit schools in the French Republic.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1875-1889.
----------JESUITS: End--------
JESUS, Uncertainty of, the date of the birth of.
See JEWS: B. C. 8-A. D. 1.
JEU-DE-PAUME, The Oath at the.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1789 (JUNE).
JEUNESSE DOREE, of the Anti-Jacobin reaction in France.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1794-1795 (JULY-APRIL).
----------JEWS: Start--------
JEWS.
The National Names.
There have been two principal conjectures as to the origin of
the name Hebrews, by which the descendants of Abraham were
originally known. One derives the name from a progenitor,
Eber; the other finds its origin in a Semitic word signifying
"over," or "crossed over." In the latter view, the name was
applied by the Canaanites to people who came into their
country from beyond the Euphrates. Ewald, who rejects this
latter hypothesis, says: "While there is nothing to show that
the name emanated from strangers, nothing is more manifest
than that the nation called themselves by it and had done so
as long as memory could reach; indeed this is the only one of
their names that appears to have been current in the earliest
times. The history of this name shows that it must have been
most frequently used in the ancient times, before that branch
of the Hebrews which took the name of Israel became dominant,
but that after the time of the Kings it entirely disappeared
from ordinary speech, and was only revived in the period
immediately before Christ, like many other names of the
primeval times, through the prevalence of a learned mode of
regarding antiquity, when it came afresh into esteem through
the reverence then felt for Abraham."
H. Ewald,
History of Israel,
volume 1, page 284.
After the return of the Israelites from the Babylonian
captivity—the returned exiles being mostly of the tribes of
Judah and Benjamin—"the name of Judah took the predominant
place in the national titles. As the primitive name of
'Hebrew' had given way to the historical name of Israel, so
that of Israel now gave way to the name of 'Judæan' or 'Jew,'
so full of praise and pride, of reproach and scorn. 'It was
born,' as their later historian [Josephus] truly observes, 'on
the day when they came out from Babylon.'"
A. P. Stanley,
Lectures on the History of the Jewish Church,
volume 3, page 101.
JEWS:
The early Hebrew history.
"Of course, in the abstract, it is possible that such persons
as Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob should have existed. One can
imagine that such and such incidents in the accounts regarding
them really took place, and were handed down by tradition. …
But our present investigation does not concern the question
whether there existed men of those names, but whether the
progenitors of Israel and of the neighbouring nations who are
represented in Genesis are historical personages. It is this
question which we answer in the negative. Must we then deny
all historical value to the narratives of the patriarchs? By
no means. What we have to do is to make proper use of them.
They teach us what the Israelites thought as to their
affinities with the tribes around them, and as to the manner
of their own settlement in the land of their abode. If we
strip them of their genealogical form, and at the same time
take into consideration the influence which Israel's self-love
must have exercised over the representation of relationships
and facts, we have an historical kernel left. … The
narratives in Genesis, viewed and used in this way, lead us to
the following conception of Israel's early history. Canaan was
originally inhabited by a number of tribes—of Semitic origin,
as we shall perceive presently—who applied themselves to the
rearing of cattle, to agriculture, or to commerce, according
to the nature of the districts in which they were established.
The countries which were subsequently named after Edom, Ammon,
and Moab, also had their aboriginal inhabitants, the Horites,
the Zamzummites, and the Emites. Whilst all these tribes
retained possession of their dwelling-places, and the
inhabitants of Canaan especially had reached a tolerably high
stage of civilization and development, there occurred a
Semitic migration, which issued from Arrapachitis (Arphacsad,
Ur Casdim), and moved on in a south-westerly direction. The
countries to the east and the south of Canaan were gradually
occupied by these intruders, the former inhabitants being
either expelled or subjugated; Ammon, Moab, Ishmael, and Edom
became the ruling nations in those districts. In Canaan the
situation was different. The tribes which—at first closely
connected with the Edomites, but afterwards separated from
them—had turned their steps towards Canaan, did not find
themselves strong enough either to drive out, or to exact
tribute from, the original inhabitants; they continued their
wandering life among them, and lived upon the whole at peace
with them. But a real settlement was still their aim. When,
therefore, they had become more numerous and powerful, through
the arrival of a number of kindred settlers from
Mesopotamia—represented in tradition by the army with which
Jacob returns to Canaan—they resumed their march in the same
south-westerly direction, until at length they took possession
of fixed habitations in the land of Goshen, on the borders of
Egypt."
A. Kuenen,
The Religion of Israel,
chapter 2 (volume 1).
"In the oldest extant record respecting Abraham, Genesis xiv.,
… we see him acting as a powerful domestic prince, among
many similar princes, who like him held Canaan in possession;
not calling himself King, like Melchizedek, the priest-king of
Salem, because he was the father and protector of his house,
living with his family and bondmen in the open country, yet
equal in power to the petty Canaanite kings. …
{1896}
Detached as this account may be, it is at least evident from
it that the Canaanites were at that time highly civilised,
since they had a priest-king like Melchizedek, whom Abraham
held in honour, but that they were even then so weakened by
endless divisions and by the emasculating influence of that
culture itself, as either to pay tribute to the warlike
nations of the northeast (as the five kings of the cities of
the Dead Sea had done for twelve years before they rebelled,
ver. 4), or to seek for some valiant descendants of the
northern lands living in their midst, who in return for
certain concessions and services promised them protection and
defence. … This idea furnishes the only tenable historical
view of the migration of Abraham and his kindred. They did not
conquer the land, nor at first hold it by mere force of arms,
like the four north-eastern kings from whose hand Abraham
delivered Lot, Genesis xiv. They advanced as leaders of small
bands, with their fencible servants and the herds, at first
rather sought or even invited by the old inhabitants of the
land, as good warriors and serviceable allies, than forcing
themselves upon them. Thus they took up their abode and
obtained possessions among them, but were always wishing to
migrate farther, even into Egypt. … Little as we are able to
prove all the details of that migration from the north towards
Egypt, which probably continued for centuries, it may with
great certainty be conceived as on the whole similar to the
gradual advance of many other northern nations; as of the
Germans towards Rome, and of the Turks in these same regions
in the Middle Ages. … We now understand that Abraham's name
can designate only one of the most important and oldest of the
Hebrew immigrations. But since Abraham had so early attained a
name glorious among the Hebrews advancing towards the south,
and since he was everything especially to the nation of Israel
which arose out of this immigration, and to their nearest
kindred, his name came to be the grand centre and
rallying-point of all the memory of those times."
H. Ewald,
History of Israel,
book 1, section 1, C, part 3.
JEWS:
The Children of Israel in Egypt.
"It has been very generally supposed that Abraham's visit to
Egypt took place under the reign of one of the kings of the
twelfth dynasty [placed by Brugsch B. C. 2466-2266], but which
king has not yet been satisfactorily made out. … Some
Biblical critics have considered that Amenemha III. was king
of Egypt when Abraham came there, and others that Usertsen I.
was king, and that Amenemha was the Pharaoh of the time of
Joseph. … It is generally accepted now that Joseph was sold
into Egypt at the time when the Hyksos were in power [and
about 1750 B. C.]; and it is also generally accepted that the
Exodus took place after the death of Rameses II. and under the
reign of Merenptah, or Meneptah. Now the children of Israel
were in captivity in Egypt for 400 or 430 years; and as they
went out of Egypt after the death of Rameses II., it was
probably some time about the year 1350 B. C. There is little
doubt that the Pharaoh who persecuted the Israelites so
shamefully was Rameses II."
E. A. W. Budge,
The Dwellers on the Nile,
chapter 4.
"It is stated by George the Syncellus, a writer whose
extensive learning and entire honesty are unquestionable, that
the synchronism of Joseph with Apepi, the last king of the
only known Hyksos dynasty, was 'acknowledged by all.' The best
modern authorities accept this view, if not as clearly

established, at any rate as in the highest degree probable,
and believe that it was Apepi who made the gifted Hebrew his
prime minister, who invited his father and his brethren to
settle in Egypt with their households, and assigned to them
the land of Goshen for their residence."
G. Rawlinson,
History of Ancient Egypt,
chapter 19 (volume 2).
"The new Pharaoh, 'who knew not Joseph,' who adorned the city
of Ramses, the capital of the Tanitic nome, and the city of
Pithom, the capital of what was afterwards the Sethroitic
nome, with temple-cities, is no other, can be no other, than
Ramessu II. or Rameses—the Sesostris of the Greeks, B. C.
1350, of whose buildings at Zoan the monuments and the
papyrus-rolls speak in complete agreement. … Ramessu is the
Pharaoh of the oppression, and the father of that unnamed
princess, who found the child Moses exposed in the bulrushes
on the bank of the river. … If Ramses-Sesostris … must be
regarded beyond all doubt as the Pharaoh under whom the Jewish
legislator Moses first saw the light, so the chronological
relations—having regard to the great age of the two
contemporaries, Ramses II. and Moses—demand that Mineptah
[his son] should in all probability be acknowledged as the
Pharaoh of the Exodus."
H. Brugsch-Bey,
History of Egypt under the Pharaohs,
chapter 14.
The quotations given above represent the orthodox view of
early Jewish history, in the light of modern monumental
studies,—the view, that is, which accepts the Biblical
account of Abraham and his seed as a literal family record,
authentically widening into the annals of a nation. The more
rationalizing views are indicated by the following: "There can
be no doubt … as to the Semitic character of these Hyksos,
or 'Pastors,' who, more than 2,000 years B. C., interrupted in
a measure the current of Egyptian civilisation, and founded at
Zoan (Tanis), near the Isthmus, the centre of a powerful
Semitic state. These Hyksos were to all appearances
Canaanites, near relations of the Hittites of Hebron. Hebron
was in close community with Zoan, and there is a tradition,
probably based upon historical data, that the two cities were
built nearly at the same time. As invariably happens when
barbarians enter into an ancient and powerful civilisation,
the Hyksos soon became Egyptianised. … The Hyksos of Zoan
could not fail to exercise a great influence upon the Hebrews
who were encamped around Hebron, the Dead Sea, and in the
southern districts of Palestine. The antipathy which
afterwards existed between the Hebrews and the Canaanites was
not as yet very perceptible. … There are the best of reasons
for believing that the immigration of the Beni-Israel took
place at two separate times. A first batch of Israelites seems
to have been attracted by the Hittites of Egypt, while the
bulk of the tribe was living upon the best of terms with the
Hittites of Hebron. These first immigrants found favour with
the Egyptianised Hittites of Memphis and Zoan; they secured
very good positions, had children, and constituted a distinct
family in Israel. This was what was afterwards called the
'clan of the Josephel,' or the Beni-Joseph. Finding themselves
well off in Lower Egypt, they sent for their brethren, who,
impelled perhaps by famine, joined them there, and were
received also favourably by the Hittite dynasties. These
new-comers never went to Memphis. They remained in the
vicinity of Zoan, where there is a land of Goshen, which was
allotted to them. …
{1897}
The whole of these ancient days, concerning which Israel
possesses only legends and contradictory traditions, is
enveloped in doubt; one thing, however, is certain, viz., that
Israel entered Egypt under a dynasty favourable to the
Semites, and left it under one which was hostile. The presence
of a nomad tribe upon the extreme confines of Egypt must have
been a matter of very small importance for this latter
country. There is no certain trace of it in the Egyptian
texts. The kingdom of Zoan, upon the contrary, left a deep
impression upon the Israelites. Zoan became for them
synonymous with Egypt. The relations between Zoan and Hebron
were kept up, and … Hebron was proud of the synchronism,
which made it out seven years older than Zoan. The
first-comers, the Josephites, always assumed an air of
superiority over their brethren, whose position they had been
instrumental in establishing. … Their children, born in
Egypt, possibly of Egyptian mothers, were scarcely Israelites.
An agreement was come to, however; it was agreed that the
Josephites should rank as Israelites with the rest. They
formed two distinct tribes, those of Ephraim and Manasseh. …
It is not impossible that the origin of the name of Joseph
(addition, adjunction, annexation) may have arisen from the
circumstance that the first emigrants and their families,
having become strangers to their brethren, needed some sort of
adjunction to become again part and parcel of the family of
Israel."
E. Renan,
History of the People of Israel,
book 1, chapter 10 (volume 1).
See, also, EGYPT: THE HYKSOS, and ABOUT B. C. 1400-1200.
JEWS:
The Route of the Exodus.
It is said of the oppressed Israelites in Egypt that "they
built for Pharaoh treasure cities, Pithom and Raamses."
(Exodus i. 11.) One of those "treasure cities," or
"store-cities," has been discovered, in a heap of ruins, at a
place which the Arabs call "Tell el Maskhutah," and it was
supposed at first to be the Raamses of the Biblical record.
But explorations made in 1883 by M. Naville seem to have
proved that it is the store-city of Pithom which lies buried
in the mounds at Tell el Maskhutah and that Raamses is still
to be found. As Raamses or Ramses was the starting point of
the Exodus, something of a controversy concerning the route of
the latter turns upon the question. It is the opinion of M.
Naville that Succoth, where the Children of Israel made their
first halt, was the district in which Pithom is situated, and
that the Land of Goshen, their dwelling-place in Egypt, was a
region embracing that district. The site of Pithom, as
identified by Naville, is "on the south side of the sweet
water canal which runs from Cairo to Suez through the Wadi
Tumilât, about 12 miles from Ismailiah." The excavations made
have brought to light a great number of chambers, with massive
walls of brick, which are conjectured to have been granaries
and storehouses, for the provisioning of caravans and armies
to cross the desert to Syria, as well as for the collecting of
tribute and for the warehousing of trade. Hence the name of
store-city, or treasure-city. Under the Greeks Pithom changed
its name to Heroopolis, and a new city called Arsinoë was
built near it.
E. Naville,
The Store-City of Pithom.
"I submit that Goshen, properly speaking, was the land which
afterwards became the Arabian nome, viz., the country round
Saft el Henneh east of the canal Abu-I-Munagge, a district
comprising Belbeis and Abbaseh, and probably extending further
north than the Wadi Tumilat. The capital of the nome was Pa
Sopt, called by the Greeks Phacusa, now Saft el Henneh. At the
time when the Israelites occupied the land, the term 'Goshen'
belonged to a region which as yet had no definite boundaries,
and which extended with the increase of the people over the
territory they inhabited. The term 'land of Ramses' applies to
a larger area, and covers that part of the Delta which lies to
the eastward of the Tanitic branch. … As for the city of
Ramses, it was situate in the Arabian nome. Probably it was
Phacusa."
E. Naville,
Shrine of Saft el Henneh and the Land of Goshen.
The Israelites leaving Succoth, a region which we now know
well, the neighbourhood of Tell-el-Maskhutah, push forward
towards the desert, skirting the northern shore of the gulf,
and thus reach the wilderness of Etham; but there, because of
the pursuit of Pharaoh, they have to change their course, they
are told to retrace their steps, so as to put the sea between
them and the desert. … 'And the Lord spake unto Moses,
saying: Speak unto the children of Israel that they turn and
encamp before Pi-hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea, over
against Baalzephon; before it shall ye encamp by the sea.' …
The question is now, Where are we to look for Migdol and
Pi-Hahiroth? As for Migdol, the ancient authors, and
particularly the Itinerary, mention a Migdol, or Magdolon,
which was twelve Roman miles distant from Pelusium. It is not
possible to admit that this is the same Migdol which is spoken
of in Exodus, for then it would not be the Red Sea, but the
Mediterranean, which the Israelites would have before them,
and we should thus have to fall in with MM. Schleiden and
Brugsch's theory, that they followed the narrow track which
lies between the Mediterranean and the Serbonian Bog. However
ingenious are the arguments on which this system is based, I
believe it must now be dismissed altogether, because we know
the site of the station of Succoth. Is it possible to admit
that, from the shore of the Arabian Gulf, the Israelites
turned to the north, and marched forty miles through the
desert in order to reach the Mediterranean? The journey would
have lasted several days; they would have been obliged to pass
in front of the fortresses of the north; they would have
fallen into the way of the land of the Philistines, which they
were told not to take; and, lastly, the Egyptians, issuing
from Tanis and the northern cities, would have easily
intercepted them. … All these reasons induce me to give up
definitively the idea of the passage by the north, and to
return to the old theory of a passage of the Red Sea, but of
the Red Sea as it was at that time, extending a great deal
farther northward, and not the Red Sea of to-day, which
occupies a very different position. The word Migdol, in
Egyptian, … is a common name. It means a fort, a tower. It
is very likely that in a fortified region there have been
several places so called, distinguished from each other,
either by the name of the king who built them, or by some
local circumstance; just as there are in Italy a considerable
number of Torre. I should therefore, with M. Ebers, place
Migdol at the present station of the Serapeum. There the sea
was not wide, and the water probably very shallow; there also
the phenomenon which took place on such a large scale when the
Israelites went through must have been well known, as it is
often seen now in other parts of Egypt.
{1898}
As at this point the sea was liable to be driven back under
the influence of the east wind, and to leave a dry way, the
Pharaohs were obliged to have there a fort, a Migdol, so as to
guard that part of the sea, and to prevent the Asiatics of the
desert from using this temporary gate to enter Egypt, to steal
cattle, and to plunder the fertile land which was round
Pithom."
E. Naville,
The Store-City of Pithom and the Route of the Exodus
(Egypt Expl. Fund, 1885).
"Modern critics prefer an intelligent interpretation,
according to known natural laws, of the words of Exodus xiv.
21, 22, which lay stress upon the 'east wind' as the direct
natural agent by which the sea bottom was for the time made
dry land. … The theory, which dates from an early period,
that the passage was in some sense tidal, miraculously aided
by the agency of wind, has thus come to be very generally
adopted."
H. S. Palmer,
Sinai
(Ancient History from the Monuments),
chapter 6.
JEWS:
The conquest of Canaan.
"The first essay [west of Jordan] was made by Judah in
conjunction with Simeon and Levi, but was far from prosperous.
Simeon and Levi were annihilated; Judah also, though
successful in mastering the mountain land to the west of the
Dead Sea, was so only at the cost of severe losses which were
not again made up until the accession of the Kenite families
of the south (Caleb). As a consequence of the secession of
these tribes, a new division of the nation into Israel and
Judah took the place of that which had previously subsisted
between the families of Leah and Rachel; under Israel were
included all the tribes except Simeon, Levi, and Judah, which
three are no longer mentioned in Judges v., where all the
others are carefully and exhaustively enumerated. This
half-abortive first invasion of the west was followed by a
second, which was stronger and attended with much better
results. It was led by the tribe of Joseph, to which the
others attached themselves, Reuben and Gad only remaining
behind in the old settlements. The district to the north of
Judah, inhabited afterwards by Benjamin, was the first to be
attacked. It was not until after several towns of this
district had one by one fallen into the hands of the
conquerors that the Canaanites set about a united resistance.
They were, however, decisively repulsed by Joshua in the
neighbourhood of Gibeon [or Beth-horon]; and by this victory
the Israelites became masters of the whole central plateau of
Palestine. The first camp, at Gilgal, near the ford of Jordan,
which had been maintained until then, was now removed, and the
ark of Jehovah brought further inland (perhaps by way of
Bethel) to Shiloh, where henceforwards the headquarters were
fixed, in a position which seemed as if it had been expressly
made to favour attacks upon the fertile tract lying beneath it
on the north. The Bne Rachel now occupied the new territory
which up to that time had been acquired—Benjamin, in
immediate contiguity with the frontier of Judah, then Ephraim,
stretching to beyond Shiloh, and lastly Manasseh, furthest to
the north, as far as to the plain of Jezreel. The centre of
gravity, so to speak, already lay in Ephraim, to which
belonged Joshua and the ark, It is mentioned as the last
achievement of Joshua that at the waters of Merom he defeated
Jabin, king of Hazor, and the allied princes of Galilee,
thereby opening up the north for Israelitish settlers. …
Even after the united resistance of the Canaanites had been
broken, each individual community had still enough to do
before it could take firm hold of the spot which it had
searched out for itself or to which it had been assigned. The
business of effecting permanent settlement was just a
continuation of the former struggle, only on a diminished
scale; every tribe and every family now fought for its own
hand after the preliminary work had been accomplished by a
united effort. Naturally, therefore, the conquest was at first
but an incomplete one. The plain which fringed the coast was
hardly touched; so also the valley of Jezreel with its girdle
of fortified cities stretching from Acco to Bethshean. All
that was subdued in the strict sense of that word was the
mountainous land, particularly the southern hill-country of
'Mount Ephraim'; yet even here the Canaanites retained
possession of not a few cities, such as Jebus, Shechem,
Thebez. It was only after the lapse of centuries that all the
lacunæ were filled up, and the Canaanite enclaves made
tributary. The Israelites had the extraordinarily
disintegrated state of the enemy to thank for the ease with
which they had achieved success."
J. Wellhausen,
Sketch of the History of Israel and Judah,
chapter 2.
"Remnants of the Canaanites remained everywhere among and
between the Israelites. Beside the Benjamites the Jebusites (a
tribe of the Amorites) maintained themselves, and at Gibeon,
Kirjath-jearim, Chephirah, and Beeroth were the Hivites, who
had made peace with the Israelites. In the land of Ephraim,
the Canaanites held their ground at Geser and Bethel, until
the latter—it was an important city—was stormed by the
Ephraimites. Among the tribe of Manasseh the Canaanites were
settled at Beth Shean, Dan, Taanach, Jibleam, Megiddo and
their districts, and in the northern tribes the Canaanites
were still more numerous. It was not till long after the
immigration of the Hebrews that they were made in part
tributary. The land of the Israelites beyond the Jordan, where
the tribe of Manasseh possessed the north, Gad the centre, and
Reuben the south as far as the Arnon, was exposed to the
attacks of the Ammonites and Moabites, and the migratory
tribes of the Syrian desert, and must have had the greater
attraction for them, as better pastures were to be found in
the heights of Gilead, and the valleys there were more
fruitful. To the west only the tribe of Ephraim reached the
sea, and became master of a harbourless strip of coast. The
remaining part of the coast and all the harbours remained in
the hands of the powerful cities of the Philistines and the
Phenicians. No attempt was made to conquer these, although
border-conflicts took place between the tribes of Judah, Dan,
and Asher, and Philistines and Sidonians. Such an attempt
could only have been made if the Israelites had remained
united, and even then the powers of the Israelites would
hardly have sufficed to overthrow the walls of Gaza, Ascalon,
and Ashdod, of Tyre, Sidon, and Byblus. Yet the invasion of
the Israelites was not without results for the cities of the
coast: it forced a large part of the population to assemble in
them, and we shall see … how rapid and powerful is the
growth of the strength and importance of Tyre in the time
immediately following the incursion of the Israelites, i. e.,
immediately after the middle of the thirteenth century.
{1899}
As the population and in consequence the power of the cities
on the coast increased, owing to the collection of the ancient
population on the shore of the sea, those cities became all
the more dangerous neighbours for the Israelites. It was a
misfortune for the new territory which the Israelites had won
by the sword that it was without the protection of natural
boundaries on the north and east, that the cities of the
Philistines and Phenicians barred it towards the sea, and in
the interior remnants of the Canaanites still maintained their
place. Yet it was a far more serious danger for the immigrants
that they were without unity, connection, or guidance, for
they had already given up these before the conflict was ended.
Undoubtedly a vigorous leadership in the war of conquest
against the Canaanites might have established a military
monarchy which would have provided better for the maintenance
of the borders and the security of the land than was done in
its absence. But the isolated defence made by the Canaanites
permitted the attacking party also to isolate themselves. The
new masters of the land lived, like the Canaanites before and
among them, in separate cantons; the mountain land which they
possessed was much broken up, and without any natural centre,
and though there were dangerous neighbours, there was no
single concentrated aggressive power in the neighbourhood, now
that Egypt remained in her borders. The cities of the
Philistines formed a federation merely, though a federation
far more strongly organised than the tribes of the Israelites.
Under these circumstances political unity was not an
immediately pressing question among the Israelites."
M. Duncker,
History of Antiquity,
book 2, chapter 11 (volume 1).
H. Ewald,
History of Israel,
book 2, section 2, C.
JEWS:
Israel under the Judges.
The wars of the Period.
Conquest of Gilead and Bashan.
Founding of the kingdom.
"The office which gives its name to the period [between the
death of Joshua and the rise of Samuel] well describes it. It
was occasional, irregular, uncertain, yet gradually tending to
fixedness and perpetuity. Its title is itself expressive. The
Ruler was not regal, but he was more than the mere head of a
tribe, or the mere judge of special cases. We have to seek for
the origin of the name, not amongst the Sheykhs of the Arabian
desert, but amongst the civilised settlements of Phœnicia.
'Shophet,' 'Shophetim,' the Hebrew word which we translate
'Judge,' is the same as we find in the 'Suffes,' 'Suffetes,'
of the Carthaginian rulers at the time of the Punic wars. As
afterwards the office of 'king' was taken from the nations
round about, so now, if not the office, at least the name of
'judge' or 'shophet' seems to have been drawn from the
Canaanitish cities, with which for the first time Israel came
into contact. … Finally the two offices which, in the
earlier years of this period, had remained distinct—the High
Priest and the Judge—were united in the person of Eli."
Dean Stanley,
Lectures on the History of the Jewish Church,
lecture 13.
"The first war mentioned in the days of the Judges is with the
Syrians, at a time when the Israelites, or a northern portion
of them, were held in servitude for eight years by a king
whose name, Cushan-rish-athaim, which may be translated the
'Most Wicked Negress,' seems to place him in the region of
imaginary tradition rather than of history. … The next war
mentioned was an invasion by the Moabites, who, being joined
with a body of Ammonites, and Amalakites, harassed the
Israelites of the neighbourhood of Gilgal and Jericho. …
After a servitude of 18 years under the Moabites, Ehud, a
Benjamite, found an opportunity of stabbing Eglon, the king of
Moab; and shortly afterwards the Benjamites were relieved by a
body of their neighbours from the hill country of Ephraim. The
Israelites then defeated the Moabites, and seized the fords of
the Jordan to stop their retreat, and slew them all to a man.
While this war was going on on one side of the land, the
Philistines from the south were harassing those of the
Israelites who were nearest to their country. … The history
then carries us back to the northern Israelites, and we hear
of their struggle with the Canaanites of that part of the
country which was afterwards called Galilee. These people were
under a king named Jabin, who had 900 chariots of iron, and
they cruelly oppressed the men of Naphtali and Zebulun, who
were at that time the most northerly of the Israelites. After
a suffering of 20 years, the two tribes of Zebulun and
Naphtali, under the leadership of Barak, rallied against their
oppressors, and called to their help their stronger
neighbours, the men of Ephraim. The tribe of Ephraim was the
most settled portion of the Israelites, and they had adopted
some form of government, while the other tribes were
stragglers scattered over the land, every man doing what was
right in his own eyes. The Ephraimites were at that time
governed, or, in their own language, judged, by a brave woman
of the name of Deborah, who led her followers, together with
some of the Benjamites, to the assistance of Barak, the leader
of Zebulun and Naphtali; and, at the foot of Mount Tabor, near
the brook Kishon, their united forces defeated Sisern, the
general of the Canaanites. Sisera fled, and was murdered by
Jael, a woman in whose tent he had sought for refuge. … The
next war that we are told of is an invasion by the Midianites
and Amalakites and Children of the East. They crossed the
Jordan to attack the men of Manasseh, who were at the same
time struggling with the Amorites, the natives who dwelt
amongst them. Gideon, the leader of Manasseh, called together
the fighting men of his own tribe, together with those of
Asher, Zebulun, and Naphtali. The men of Gilead, who had come
over to help him, seem to have deserted him. Gideon, however,
routed his enemies, and then he summoned the Ephraimites to
guard the fords of the Jordan, and to cut off the fugitives.
… This victory of Gideon, or Jerubbaal, as he was also
named, marked him out as a man fit to be the ruler of Israel,
and to save them from the troubles that arose from the want of
a single head to lead them against the enemies that surrounded
them and dwelt among them. Accordingly, he obtained the rank
of chief of all the northern Israelites. Gideon had dwelt at
Ophrah, in the land of Manasseh; but his son Abimelech, who
succeeded him in his high post, was born in Shechem, in the
land of Ephraim, and had thus gained the friendship of some of
that tribe. Abimelech put to death all but one of his
brethren, the other sons of Gideon, and got himself made king
at Shechem; and he was the first who bore that title among the
Israelites.
{1900}
But his thus violently seizing upon the power was the cause of
a long civil war between Ephraim and Manasseh, which ended in
the death of the usurper Abimelech, and the transfer of the
chieftainship to another tribe. Tola, a man of Issachar, was
then made Judge, or ruler of the northern tribes. … After
Tola, says the historian, Jair of Gilead judged Israel. …
Jair and his successors may have ruled in the east at the same
time that Deborah and Gideon and their successors were ruling
or struggling against their oppressors in the west. Jephtha of
Gilead is the next great captain mentioned. … The Ammonites,
who dwelt in the more desert country to the east of Gilead,
had made a serious incursion on the Israelites on both sides
of the Jordan; and the men of Gilead, in their distress, sent
for Jephtha, who was then living at Tob, in Syria, whither he
had fled from a quarrel with his brethren. … It seems that
the Ammonites invaded Gilead on the plea that they had
possessed that land before the Israelites arrived there, to
which Jephtha answered that the Israelites had dispossessed
the Amorites under Sihon, king of Heshbon, and that the
Ammonites had not dwelt in that part of the country. In
stating the argument, the historian gives a history of their
arrival on the banks of the Jordan. On coming out of Lower
Egypt, they crossed the desert to the Red Sea, and then came
to Kadesh. From thence they asked leave of the Edomites and
Moabites to pass through their territory; but, being refused,
they went round Moab till they came to the northern bank of
the river Arnon, an eastern tributary of the Jordan. There
they were attacked by Sihon, king of the Amorites; and on
defeating him they seized his territory, which lay between the
Arnon and the Jabbok. There the Israelites had dwelt quietly
for 300 years, without fighting against either the Moabites or
the Ammonites, who were both too strong to be attacked. This
is a most interesting narrative, both for what it tells and
for what it omits, as compared with the longer narrative in
the Pentateuch. … It omits all mention of the delivery of
the Law, or of the Ark, or of any supernatural events as
having happened on the march, and of the fighting with Og,
king of Bashan. Og, or Gog, as it is spelled by other writers,
was the name of the monarch whose imaginary castles, seen upon
the mountains in the distance, the traveller thought it not
wise to approach. They were at the limits of all geographical
knowledge. At this early time this fabulous king held Mount
Bashan; in Ezekiel's time he had retreated to the shores of
the Caspian Sea; and ten centuries later the Arabic travellers
were stopped by him at the foot of the Altai Mountains, in
Central Asia. His withdrawing before the advance of
geographical explorers proves his unreal character. He is not
mentioned in this earlier account of the Israelites settling
in the land of the Amorites; it is only in the more modern
narrative in the Book of Numbers that he is attacked and
defeated in battle, and only in the yet more modern Book of
Deuteronomy that we learn about his iron bedstead of nine
cubits in length."
S. Sharpe,
History of the Hebrew Nation,
pages 4-9.
"At the close of the period of the Judges the greater part of
the Israelites had quite lost their pastoral habits. They were
an agricultural people living in cities and villages, and
their oldest civil laws I are framed for this kind of life.
All the new arts which this complete change of habit implies
they must have derived from the Canaanites, and as they
learned the ways of agricultural life they could hardly fail
to acquire many of the characteristics of their teachers. To
make the transformation complete only one thing was lacking
—that Israel should also accept the religion of the
aborigines. The history and the prophets alike testify that to
a great extent they actually did this. Canaanite sanctuaries
became Hebrew holy places, and the vileness of Canaanite
nature-worship polluted the Hebrew festivals. For a time it
seemed that Jehovah, the ancestral God of Israel, who brought
their fathers up out of the house of bondage and gave them
their goodly land, would be forgotten or transformed into a
Canaanite Baal. If this change had been completed Israel would
have left no name in the world's history; but Providence had
other things in store for the people of Jehovah. Henceforth
the real significance of Israel's fortunes lies in the
preservation and development of the national faith, and the
history of the tribes of Jacob is rightly set forth in the
Bible as the history of that divine discipline by which
Jehovah maintained a people for Himself amidst the seductions
of Canaanite worship and the ever-new backslidings of Israel.
… In the end Jehovah was still the God of Israel, and had
become the God of Israel's land. Canaan was His heritage, not
the heritage of the Baalim, and the Canaanite worship appears
henceforth, not as a direct rival to the worship of Jehovah,
but as a disturbing element corrupting the national faith,
while unable to supplant it altogether. This, of course, in
virtue of the close connection between religion and national
feeling, means that Israel had now risen above the danger of
absorption in the Canaanites, and felt itself to be a nation
in the true sense of the word. We learn from the books of
Samuel how this great advance was ultimately and permanently
secured. The earlier wars recorded in the book of Judges had
brought about no complete or lasting unity among the Hebrew
tribes. But at length a new enemy arose, more formidable than
any whom they had previously encountered. The Philistines from
Caphtor, who, like the Israelites, had entered Canaan as
emigrants, but coming most probably by sea had displaced the
aboriginal Avvim in the rich coastlands beneath the mountains
of Judah (Deuteronomy ii. 23; Amos ix. 7), pressed into the
heart of the country, and broke the old strength of Ephraim in
the battle of Ebenezer. This victory cut the Hebrew
settlements in two, and threatened the independence of all the
tribes. The common danger drew Israel together."
W. Robertson Smith,
The Prophets of Israel,
lecture 1.
JEWS:
The Kingdoms of Israel and Judah.
"No one appeared again in the character at once of judge and
warrior, to protect the people by force of arms. It was the
Levite Samuel, a prophet dedicated to God even before his
birth, who recalled them to the consciousness of religious
feeling. He succeeded in removing the emblems of Baal and
Astarte from the heights, and in paving the way for renewed
faith in Jehovah. … It was the feeling of the people that
they could only carry on the war upon the system employed by
all their neighbors.
{1901}
They demanded a king—a request very intelligible under
existing circumstances, but one which nevertheless involved a
wide and significant departure from the impulses which had
hitherto moved the Jewish community and the forms in which it
had shaped itself. … The Israelites demanded a king, not
only to go before them and fight their battles, but also to
judge them. They no longer looked for their preservation to
the occasional efforts of the prophetic order and the
ephemeral existence of heroic leaders. … The argument by
which Samuel, as the narrative records, seeks to deter the
people from their purpose, is that the king will encroach upon
the freedom of private life which they have hitherto enjoyed,
employing their sons and daughters in his service, whether in
the palace or in war, exacting tithes, taking the best part of
the land for himself, and regarding all as his bondsmen. In
this freedom of tribal and family life lay the essence of the
Mosaic constitution. But the danger that all may be lost is so
pressing that the people insist upon their own will in
opposition to the prophet. Nevertheless, without the prophet
nothing can be done, and it is he who selects from the youth
of the country the man who is to enjoy the new dignity in
Israel. … At first the proceeding had but a doubtful result.
Many despised a young man sprung from the smallest family of
the smallest tribe of Israel, as one who could give them no
real assistance. In order to make effective the conception of
the kingly office thus assigned to him, it was necessary in
the first place that he should gain for himself a personal
reputation. A king of the Ammonites, a tribe in affinity to
Israel, laid siege to Jabesh in Gilead, and burdened the
proffered surrender of the place with the condition that he
should put out the right eyes of the inhabitants. … Saul,
the son of Kish, a Benjamite, designated by the prophet as
king, but not as yet recognized as such, was engaged, as
Gideon before him, in his rustic labors, when he learned the
situation through the lamentations of the people. … Seized
with the idea of his mission, Saul cuts in pieces a yoke of
oxen, and sends the portions to the twelve tribes with the
threat, 'Whosoever cometh not forth after Saul and after
Samuel, so shall it be done unto his oxen.' … Thus urged,
… Israel combines like one man; Jabesh is rescued and Saul
acknowledged as king. … With the recognition of the king,
however, and the progress of his good-fortune, a new and
disturbing element appears. A contest breaks out between him
and the prophet, in which we recognize not so much opposition
as jealousy between the two powers. … On the one side was
the independent power of monarchy, which looks to the
requirements of the moment, on the other the prophet's
tenacious and unreserved adherence to tradition. … The
relations between the tribes have also some bearing on the
question. Hitherto Ephraim had led the van, and jealously
insisted on its prerogative. Saul was of Benjamin, a tribe
nearly related to Ephraim by descent. He had made the men of
his own tribe captains, and had given them vineyards. On the
other hand, the prophet chose Saul's successor from the tribe
of Judah. This successor was David, the son of Jesse. … In
the opposition which now begins we have on the one side the
prophet and his anointed, who aim at maintaining the religious
authority in all its aspects, on the other the champion and
deliverer of the nation, who, abandoned by the faithful, turns
for aid to the powers of darkness and seeks knowledge of the
future through witchcraft. Saul is the first tragic personage
in the history of the world. David took refuge with the
Philistines. Among them he lived as an independent military
chieftain, and was joined not only by opponents of the king,
but by others, ready for any service, or, in the language of
the original, 'men armed with bows, who could use both the
right hand and the left in hurling stones and shooting arrows
out of a bow.' … In any serious war against the Israelites,
such as actually broke out, the Sarim of the Philistines would
not have tolerated him amongst them. David preferred to engage
in a second attack upon the Amalekites, the common enemy of
Philistines and Jews. At this juncture Israel was defeated by
the Philistines. The king's sons were slain; Saul, in danger
of falling into the enemy's hands, slew himself. Meanwhile
David with his freebooters had defeated the Amalekites, and
torn from their grasp the spoil they had accumulated, which
was now distributed in Judah. Soon after, the death of Saul is
announced. … David, conscious of being the rightful
successor of Saul—for on him too, long ere this, the unction
had been bestowed—betook himself to Hebron, the seat of the
ancient Canaanitish kings, which had subsequently been given
up to the priests and made one of the cities of refuge. It was
in the province of Judah; and there, the tribe of Judah
assisting at the ceremony, David was once more anointed. This
tribe alone, however, acknowledged him; the others, especially
Ephraim and Benjamin, attached themselves to Ishbosheth, the
surviving son of Saul. … The first passage of arms between
the two hosts took place between twelve of the tribe of
Benjamin and twelve of David's men-at-arms. It led, however,
to no result; it was a mutual slaughter, so complete as to
leave no survivor. But in the more serious struggle which
succeeded this the troops of David, trained as they were in
warlike undertakings of great daring as well as variety, won
the victory over Ishbosheth; and as the unanointed king could
not rely upon the complete obedience of his
commander-in-chief, who considered himself as important as his
master, David, step by step, won the upper hand. … The
Benjamites had been the heart and soul of the opposition which
David experienced. Nevertheless, the first action which he
undertook as acknowledged king of all the tribes redounded
specially to their advantage, whilst it was at the same time a
task of the utmost importance for the whole Israelitish
commonwealth. Although Joshua had conquered the Amorites, one
of their strongholds, Jebus, still remained unsubdued, and the
Benjamites had exerted all their strength against it in vain.
It was to this point that David next directed his victorious
arms. Having conquered the place, he transferred the seat of
his kingdom thither without delay [see JERUSALEM]. This seat
is Jerusalem; the word Zion has the same meaning as Jebus."
L. von Ranke,
Universal History:
The Oldest Historical Groups of Nations,
chapter 2.
{1902}
"After Saul's death it was at first only in Judah, where David
maintained his government, that a new Kingdom of Israel could be
established at all, so disastrous were the consequences of the
great Philistine victory. The Philistines, who must have already
conquered the central territory, now occupied that to the
north, also, while the inhabitants of the cities of the great
plain of Jezreel and of the western bank of the Jordan, fled,
we are very distinctly informed, across the river."
H. Ewald,
History of Israel,
book 3.
But Abner, the strong warrior and the faithful kinsman of
Saul's family, took Ishbosheth, the oldest surviving son of
his dead king, and throned him in the city of Mahanaim, beyond
the Jordan, proceeding gradually to gather a kingdom for him
by reconquest from the Philistines. Thus the Israelite nation
was first divided into the two kingdoms of Israel and Judah,
and there was bitter war between them. But that first division
was not to endure long. Abner and Ishbosheth fell victims to
treachery, and the tribes which had held by them offered
allegiance to David, who then became king over "all Israel and
Judah." By the conquest of the city of Jebus from its
Canaanite founders and possessors, he acquired a new,
impregnable capital, which, under the name of Jerusalem, grew
to be the most reverently looked upon of all the cities of the
world. "History has been completely distorted in representing
David as the head of a powerful kingdom, which embraced nearly
the whole of Syria. David was king of Judah and of Israel, and
that was all; the neighboring peoples, Hebrews, Canaanites,
Arameans and Philistines, as far as Mahul Hermon and the
desert, were sternly subjected, and were more or less its
tributaries. In reality, with the exception, perhaps, of the
small town of Ziklag, David did not annex any non-Israelite
country to the domain of Israel. The Philistines, the
Edomites, the Moabites, the Ammonites, and the Arameans of
Zoba, of Damascus, of Rehob and of Maacah were, after his day,
very much what they were before, only a little weaker.
Conquest was not a characteristic of Israel; the taking
possession of the Canaanite lands was an act of a different
order, and it came to be more and more regarded as the
execution of a decree of Iahveh. As this decree did not extend
to the lands of Edom, of Moab, of Ammon and of Aram, the
Israelites deemed themselves justified in treating the
Edomites, the Moabites, the Ammonites and the Arameans with
the utmost severity, in carrying off their precious stones and
objects of price, but not in taking their land, or in changing
their dynasty. None of the methods employed by great empires
such as Assyria was known to these small peoples, which had
scarcely got beyond the status of tribes. They were as cruel
as Assur, but much less politic and less capable of a general
plan. The impression produced by the appearance of this new
royalty was none the less extraordinary. The halo of glory
which enveloped David remained like a star upon the forehead
of Israel."
E. Renan,
History of the People of Israel,
book 3, chapter 4 (volume 2).
David died about 1000 B. C. and was succeeded by his son
Solomon, whose mother, Bathsheba, secured the throne for him
by intrigue. "Solomon was a younger son, to whom the throne
had been allotted contrary to ordinary laws of succession,
whilst Adonijah, whom a portion of the people had recognised
as king, was considered the rightful heir. So long as the
latter lived. Solomon's government could not be on a firm
basis, and he could never feel himself secure. Adonijah had
therefore to be removed; the leader of the body guard,
Benaiah, forcibly entered his house and killed him. As an
excuse for this act of violence, it was asserted that Adonijah
had attempted to win the hand of Abishag, the young widow of
David, and thus had revealed his traitorous intention of
contesting the throne with his brother. No sooner had he
fallen than Joab, the former adherent of Adonijah, feared that
a similar fate would overtake him. This exemplary general, who
had contributed so considerably to the aggrandisement of the
people of Israel and to the power of the house of David, fled
to the altar on Mount Zion, and clung to it, hoping to escape
death. Benaiah, however, refused to respect his place of
refuge, and shed his blood at the altar. In order to excuse
this crime, it was circulated that David himself, on his
death-bed, had impressed on his successor the duty of
preventing Joab's grey head from sinking in peace to its last
rest. … Adonijah's priestly partisan, Abiathar, whom Solomon
did not dare to touch, was deprived of his office as high
priest, and Zadok was made the sole head of the priesthood.
His descendants were invested with the dignity of high priest
for over a thousand years, whilst the offspring of Abiathar
were neglected. The Benjamite Shimei, who had attacked David
with execrations on his flight from Jerusalem, was also
executed, and it was only through this three-fold deed of
blood that Solomon's throne appeared to gain stability.
Solomon then directed his attention to the formation of a
court of the greatest magnificence."
H. Graetz,
History of the Jews,
volume 1, chapter 9.
"The main characteristic of Solomon's reign was peace. The
Philistines, allies of the new dynasty, and given profitable
employment by it as mercenaries, were no longer tempted to
cross the frontier. … The decay of military strength was
only felt in the zone of countries which were tributary to the
kingdom. Hadad, or Hadar, the Edomite, who had been defeated
by Joab and had taken refuge in Egypt, having heard of David's
death, and that of Joab as well, left Pharaoh, whose
sister-in-law he had married. We have no details of this war.
… We only know that Hadad braved Israel throughout the whole
of Solomon's reign, that he did it all the injury he could,
and that he was an independent ruler over a great part at all
events of Edom. A still more formidable adversary was Rezon,
son of Eliadah, an Aramean warrior who, after the defeat of
his lord, Hadadezer, king of Zobah, had assembled about him
those who had fled before the sword of David. … A lucky
'coup-de-main' placed the city of Damascus at their mercy, and
they succeeded in maintaining themselves there. During the
whole of Solomon's reign Rezon continued to make war against
Israel. The kingdom of Zobah does not appear, however, to have
been re-established. Damascus became henceforth the centre and
capital of that part of Aramea which adjoined Mount Hermon.
David's horizon never extended beyond Syria. With Solomon,
fresh perspectives opened up for the Israelites, especially
for Jerusalem. Israel is no longer a group of tribes,
continuing to lead in its mountains the patriarchal life of
the past. It is a well-organised kingdom, small according to
our ideas, but rather large judged by the standard of the day.
The worldly life of the people of Iahveh is about to begin. If
Israel had no other life but that it would not have found a
place in history. … An alliance with Egypt was the first
step in that career of profane politics which the prophets
afterwards interlarded with so much that was impossible. …
{1903}
The king of Egypt gave Gezer as a dowry to his daughter, and
married her to Solomon. … It is not too much to suppose that
the tastes of this princess for refined luxury had a great
influence upon the mind of her husband. … The relations of
Solomon with Tyre exercised a still more civilising influence.
Tyre, recently separated from Sidon, was then at the zenith of
its activity, and, so to speak, in the full fire of its first
foundation. A dynasty of kings named Hiram, or rather Ahiram,
was at the head of this movement. The island was covered with
constructions imitated from Egypt. … Hiram is the close ally
of the king of Israel; it is he who provides Solomon with the
artists who were lacking at Jerusalem; the precious materials
for the buildings in Zion; seamen for the fleet of Eziongeber.
The region of the upper Jordan, conquered by David, appears to
have remained tributary to Solomon. What has been related as
to a much larger extension of the kingdom of Solomon is
greatly exaggerated. … The fables as to the pretended
foundation of Palmyra by Solomon come from a letter
intentionally added to the text of the ancient historiographer
by the compiler of the Chronicles. The construction of Baalbec
by Solomon rests upon a still more inadmissible piece of
identification. … In reality, the dominion of Solomon was
confined to Palestine. … What was better than peoples kept
under by force, the Arab brigands were held in check from
pillage. The Amalekites, the Midianites, the Beni-Quedem and
other nomads were confronted with an impassable barrier all
around Israel. The Philistines preserved their independence.
… When it is surmised that Solomon reigned over all Syria,
the size of his kingdom is exaggerated at least fourfold.
Solomon's kingdom was barely a fourth of what is now called
Syria. … Solomon … built 'cities of store,' or warehouses,
the commercial or military object of which cannot well be
defined. There was, more especially, a place named Tamar, in
the direction of Petra, of which Solomon made a city, and
which became a calling-place for the caravans. … With very
good reason, too, Solomon had his attention constantly fixed
upon the Red Sea, a broad canal which placed the dawning
civilisation of the Mediterranean in communication with India,
and thus opened up a new world, that of Ophir. The Bay of Suez
belonged to Egypt, but the Gulf of Akaba was, one may say, at
the mercy of anyone who cared to take it. Elath and
Asiongaber, according to all appearances, had been of very
little importance in earlier times. Without regularly
occupying the country, Solomon secured the route by the Valley
of Araba. He built a fleet at Asiongaber, though the
Israelites had never much liking for the sea. Hiram provided
Solomon with sailors, or, what is more probable, the two
fleets acted together. On leaving the Straits of Aden, they
went to Ophir, that is to say, to Western India, to Guzarate,
or to the coast of Malabar."
E. Renan,
History of the People of Israel,
book 3, chapter 10 (volume 2).
The government of Solomon was extravagant and despotic; it
imposed burdens upon the people which were borne impatiently
until his death; and when his son Rehoboam refused to lessen
them, the nation was instantly broken again on the lines of
the earlier rupture. The two tribes of Judah and Benjamin,
only, remained faithful to the house of David and constituted
the kingdom of Judah. The other ten tribes made Jeroboam their
king and retained the name of Israel for their kingdom. The
period of this division is fixed at 978 B. C. Jerusalem
continued to be the capital of the kingdom of Judah. In the
kingdom of Israel several changes of royal residence occurred
during the first half century, until Samaria was founded by
King Omri and thenceforth became the capital city. "Six miles
from Shechem, in the same well-watered valley, here opening
into a wide basin, rises an oblong hill, with steep yet
accessible sides, and a long level top. This was the mountain
of Samaria, or, as it is called in the original, Shômeron, so
named after its owner Shemer, who there lived in state, and
who sold it to the King for the great sum of two talents of
silver."
Dean Stanley,
Lectures on the History of the Jewish Church,
lectures 29-30 (volume 2).
For two centuries, until the overthrow of the kingdom, Samaria
continued to be the queen of the land, and the seat of
government, often giving its name to the whole state, so that
the kings were called "Kings of Samaria." "Under the dynasties
of Omri and Jehu [10th-8th centuries, B. C.] the Northern
Kingdom took the leading part in Israel; even to the Judæan
Amos it was Israel 'par excellence.' Judah was not only
inferior in political power, but in the share it took in the
active movements of national life and thought. In tracing the
history of religion and the work of the prophets, we have been
almost exclusively occupied with the North; Amos himself, when
charged with a message to the whole family that Jehovah
brought up out of Egypt, leaves his home to preach in a
Northern sanctuary. During this whole period we have a much
fuller knowledge of the life of Ephraim than of Judah; the
Judæan history consists of meagre extracts from official
records, except where it comes into contact with the North,
through the alliance of Jehoshaphat with Ahab; through the
reaction of Jehu's revolution in the fall of Athaliah, the
last scion of the house of Ahab, and the accompanying
abolition of Baal worship at Jerusalem, or, finally, through
the presumptuous attempt of Amaziah to measure his strength
with the powerful monarch of Samaria. While the house of
Ephraim was engaged in the great war with Syria, Judah had
seldom to deal with enemies more formidable than the
Philistines or the Edomites; and the contest with these foes,
renewed with varying success generation after generation,
resolved itself into a succession of forays and blood-feuds
such as have always been common in the lands of the Semites
(Amos i.), and never assumed the character of a struggle for
national existence. It was the Northern Kingdom that had the
task of upholding the standard of Israel; its whole history
presents greater interest and more heroic elements; its
struggles, its calamities, and its glories were cast in a
larger mould. It is a trite proverb that the nation which has
no history is happy, and perhaps the course of Judah's
existence ran more smoothly than that of its greater neighbor,
in spite of the raids of the slave-dealers of the coast, and
the lawless hordes of the desert. But no side of national
existence is likely to find full development where there is
little political activity; if the life of the North was more
troubled, it was also larger and more intense.
{1904}
Ephraim took the lead in literature and religion as well as in
politics; it was in Ephraim far more than in Judah that the
traditions of past history were cherished, and new problems of
religion became practical and called for solution by the word
of the prophets. So long as the Northern Kingdom endured Judah
was content to learn from it for evil or for good. It would be
easy to show in detail that every wave of life and thought in
Ephraim was transmitted with diminished intensity to the
Southern Kingdom. In many respects the influence of Ephraim
upon Judah was similar to that of England upon Scotland before
the union of the crowns, but with the important difference
that after the accession of Omri the two Hebrew kingdoms were
seldom involved in hostilities. … The internal condition of
the [Judæan] state was stable, though little progressive; the
kings were fairly successful in war, though not sufficiently
strong to maintain unbroken authority over Edom, the only
vassal state of the old Davidic realm over which they still
claimed suzerainty, and their civil administration must have
been generally satisfactory according to the not very high
standard of the East; for they retained the affections of
their people, the justice and mercy of the throne of David are
favourably spoken of in the old prophecy against Moab quoted
in Isaiah XV., xvi., and Isaiah contrasts the disorders of his
own time with the ancient reputation of Jerusalem for fidelity
and justice (i. 21). … The religious conduct of the house of
David followed the same general lines. Old abuses remained
untouched, but the cultus remained much as David and Solomon
had left it. Local high places were numerous, and no attempt
was made to interfere with them; but the great temple on Mount
Zion, which formed part of the complex of royal buildings
erected by Solomon, maintained its prestige, and appears to
have been a special object of solicitude to the kings, who
treated its service as part of their royal state. It is common
to imagine that the religious condition of Judah was very much
superior to that of the North, but there is absolutely no
evidence to support this opinion."
W. Robertson Smith,
The Prophets of Israel,
lecture 5.
In the year B. C. 745 the throne of Assyria was seized by a
soldier of great ability, called Pul, or Pulu, who took the
name of Tiglath-pileser III. and who promptly entered on an
ambitious career of conquest, with imperial aims and plans.
"In B. C. 738 we find him receiving tribute from Menahem of
Samaria, Rezon of Damascus, and Hiram of Tyre. … The throne
of Israel was occupied at the time by Pekah, a successful
general who had murdered his predecessor, but who was
evidently a man of vigour and ability. He and Rezon
endeavoured to form a confederacy of the Syrian and
Palestinian states against their common Assyrian foe. In order
to effect their object they considered it necessary to
displace the reigning king of Judah, Ahaz, and substitute for
him a creature of their own. … They were aided by a party of
malcontents in Judah itself (Isaiah viii. 6), and the position
of Ahaz seemed desperate. … In this moment of peril Isaiah
was instructed to meet and comfort Ahaz. He bade him 'fear
not, neither be fainthearted,' for the confederacy against the
dynasty of David should be broken and overthrown. … But Ahaz
… had no faith either in the prophet or in the message he
was commissioned to deliver. He saw safety in one course
only—that of invoking the assistance of the Assyrian king,
and bribing him by the offer of homage and tribute to march
against his enemies. In vain Isaiah denounced so suicidal and
unpatriotic a policy. In vain he foretold that when Damascus
and Samaria had been crushed, the next victim of the Assyrian