The immunity of an anointed king had its influence on the strong-minded German Emperor, William I. A young married couple visited the island of Meinau, where the Emperor was residing with his son-in-law, the Grand Duke of Baden. On their departure, so violent a storm came on that their boatman found it impossible to proceed, and they were forced to return to the island. The Emperor, seeing their plight, met them on the beach, and ordering steam to be got up in a small iron steam launch, placed it at their service. But the lady, alarmed at her first encounter with the waves, demurred somewhat to trusting herself again to their mercies. “Do not be alarmed,” said the Emperor, “the steamer bears my name, and that ought to reassure you.”
But Henry I. does not seem to have been of this opinion, for when in June 1131 he had embarked from Normandy for England, he was so dismayed by the bursting of a water-spout over the vessel and the fury of the wind and waves, that, believing his last hour was at hand, he made a penitent acknowledgment of his sins, promising to lead a new life if God should preserve him from the peril of death.
Dreams have occasionally exerted a disquieting influence on royalty, two or three instances of which may be quoted. Thus Bossuet, in his funeral oration on the Princess Palatine, Anne of Gonzaga, attributes her conversion to a mysterious dream. “This,” says he, “was a marvellous dream; one of those which God himself produces through the ministry of his angels; one in which the images are clearly and orderly arranged, and we are permitted to obtain a glimpse of celestial things. The princess fancied she was walking alone in a forest, when she found a blind man in a small cottage. She approached him, and inquired if he had been blind from his birth, or whether it was the result of an accident. He told her that he was born blind. ‘You are ignorant then,’ she said, ‘of the effect of light, how beautiful and pleasant it is; nor can you conceive the glory and beauty of the sun.’ ‘I have never,’ he replied, ‘enjoyed the sight of that beautiful object, nor can I form any idea of it, nevertheless I believe it to be surpassing glorious.’ The blind man then seemed to change his voice and manner, and assuming a tone of authority, ‘My example,’ he continued, ‘should teach you there are excellent things which escape your notice, and which are not less true or less desirable, although you can neither comprehend nor imagine them.’”
Again, a few nights before the fatal day on which Henry IV. of France was assassinated by Ravaillac—Friday, May 14, 1610—the Queen dreamed that all the jewels in her crown were changed into pearls, and that she was told pearls were significant of tears. Another night she started and cried out in her sleep, and waked the King, who, asking her what was the matter, she answered, “I have had a frightful dream, but I know that dreams are mere illusions.”
“I was always of the same opinion,” said Henry; “however, tell me what your dream was.”
“I dreamed,” continued the Queen, “that you were stabbed with a knife under the short ribs.”
“Thank God,” added the King, “it was but a dream.”
On the morning of the fatal day the King more than once said to those about him, “Something or other hangs very heavy on my heart.” Before he entered his carriage he took leave of the Queen no fewer than three times, and had not driven long ere Ravaillac gave him the deadly thrust which deprived France of one of the most humane sovereigns she ever had.
A strange illustration of ignorance and superstition was that afforded by the Emperor Romanus, who on the night of the death of his son Constantine had a dream, in which he beheld him falling into hell. In a state of alarm he despatched messengers to Jerusalem and Rome to solicit the prayers of the faithful, and he summoned the monks of all the adjacent monasteries to assemble around him, three hundred of whom obeyed the invitation. The day was Holy Thursday, and, “at the moment of the elevation of the Host, he divested himself of his upper garments and stood in the midst of the assembly with nothing on but his shirt. With a loud voice he read his general confession,” at the conclusion of which he knelt before each monk in turn and received absolution. His humiliation followed, for the whole assembly then retired to partake of the ordinary repast, during which Romanus, still in his shirt, stood in a corner apart, and a little hired boy was occupied in whipping his naked legs, exclaiming, “Get to table, you wicked old fellow! get to table!” That the whole ceremony had divine sanction is proved by the numerous miracles which are said to have taken place, but “of which no ocular witness ever made deposition.”
It was a dream—so asserted the Sultan Bajazet II.—that directed this ruler when, on the 25th of April 1512, his son Selim appeared in front of the palace at the head of an irresistible force, exclaiming, “If you will not yield, we will not touch your life, but we will drag you by your robes on the points of our javelins from the throne.” On the following morning he acceded to their demands, acknowledging that a dream of the night had taught him the course he was to take. “This was my dream,” said the monarch, who was extricating himself from disgrace, to follow the instructions imparted in a dream—“I saw my crown placed by my soldiers on my son Selim’s head. It would be injurious to resist such a sign.”