TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:

—Obvious print and punctuation errors were corrected.

—This work is divided into three volumes, all of them available on PG; index is on third volume. It has been split replacing every item in the volume where they belong. A full version of index without links has been mantained at the end of third volume.

—The transcriber of this project created the book cover image using the title page of the original book. The image is placed in the public domain.

HISTORICAL
PARALLELS

IN THREE VOLUMES

VOL. I.

LONDON:
CHARLES KNIGHT & Co., LUDGATE STREET.
1846.

LONDON:
PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS,
STAMFORD STREET.

CONTENTS.

HISTORICAL PARALLELS.

INTRODUCTION.

Works of history may be divided into two great classes: those which select a single action or a detached period for their subject; and those which follow a nation through the whole or a large portion of its existence; and which, embracing a number of such subjects, compensate for giving less minute and accurate information upon each, by explaining their relation, and the influence which they have exerted upon each other. To the former belong Thucydides, Xenophon, and Cæsar; to the latter Diodorus and Livy: or, in English literature, we may take Clarendon and Hume respectively as the representatives of these divisions. It is obvious that the method of treating themes so different in character, must also be essentially different; that for an historian of the latter class to aim at the particularity which we expect in the former, would involve something of the same absurdity as if a landscape painter were to give to an extended horizon the distinctness and detail which are proper to his foregrounds or to a closely bounded scene. If our curiosity is not satisfied by a comprehensive view, the remedy is to be found by multiplying pictures of its most striking parts, not by introducing into one canvas a multitude of objects which must fatigue and confuse the mind, and obscure those leading features which ought to stand out in prominent relief. Any one who wished to become acquainted with the nature and characteristics of a country, which he could not survey personally, would neither confine his inspection to bird’s–eye and panoramic views, nor content himself with a series of detached paintings, though representing separately whatever was most worthy of observation: in the one case his ideas, though perhaps correct, would necessarily be slight and superficial; in the other, his knowledge of the parts would never enable him to form an accurate judgment of the whole.

Valuable, therefore, as is the assistance of those authors who have devoted their talents and learning to epitomizing and rendering accessible the story of past ages, it is far from desirable that we should content ourselves with a blind trust in them, without checking their assertions, and filling up their sketches by a more detailed knowledge than it is possible for them to communicate. To apply these observations to the present work, the History of Greece contained in the Library of Useful Knowledge necessarily gives a very short account of many things which deserve to be known in detail, both on account of their historical notoriety and for the intrinsic value which they possess as striking examples of human power, passion, and suffering. Much of the excessive commendation which has been bestowed upon ancient virtue and patriotism ought probably to be attributed to the eager interest naturally excited by the revival of learning and the peculiar circumstances under which it took place. The discovery of the works of the most celebrated writers of antiquity, whose names at least had not been forgotten, must at any time have produced much curiosity and excitement: and peculiarly so when modern literature did not yet possess many names to divide the palm of genius with them. Besides this the political circumstances of the Italian states, in which the new discoveries were at first most successfully and generally prosecuted, would give an additional interest and a peculiar bias to the study of ancient literature; for their inhabitants would naturally be disposed, as Italians, to exult in the glories of ancient Italy, and as republicans to look for patterns both of polity and of conduct among the famous republics of Greece and Rome. A contrary cause, in a later age, and in countries subject to arbitrary power, would probably conduce to the continuance of the same feeling, when the prevalent subjection of public opinion made it safer to enforce sentiments of freedom and patriotism under the mask of an overstrained admiration for actions, frequently of very questionable character, done in times long past, than openly to profess the love of republican simplicity and liberty, which was willingly left to be inferred. The usual course of education long tended, and in an inferior degree perhaps still tends, to cherish the same indiscriminate enthusiasm. The first histories put into the hands of children are usually those of Greece and Rome, taken not from the sober and comparatively unprejudiced relations of the earliest authorities, but from Plutarch, and other compilers of a later age, who, living themselves under despotic power, and compelled to veil their philosophical aspirations after a better state of polity and morals under extravagant praises of a by–gone period of imaginary virtue and disinterestedness, were for the most part ready to warp truth into correspondence with their own views. In such works actions are held up to admiration because they are brilliant, without much inquiry whether they were justifiable; wanton and unjust aggressions, and other crimes of still deeper dye, are glossed over upon some false plea of patriotism; or their moral quality is never alluded to, and the young reader is too much captivated by the splendour of bravery and talent, to remember that the ends to which these gifts are directed should never be forgotten in estimating their claim to applause.[1] But whatever be our opinion touching Grecian and Roman virtue, or the moral character of the most celebrated portions of their history, these have obtained a degree of currency and notoriety which render familiar acquaintance with them almost necessary for the full understanding of much even of modern literature. The object of this work is to supply, in part, these details from the original historians, and to compare or contrast them with other remarkable incidents of ancient or modern times; in hope of forming a collection of narratives of some interest to those who are not largely read in history. And even those who are in some degree familiar with the subjects here treated, but whose knowledge is chiefly drawn from compilations of modern date, may be gratified by the variety in style, feelings, and opinions observable in a collection of extracts from authors of various dates and nations.

We have selected from the Grecian History, in chronological order, as furnishing the readiest principle of arrangement, a series of occurrences of which some have obtained remarkable notoriety; some, being less known, are either striking in themselves, or characteristic of the age and people to which they belong; and finally some, with less intrinsic value, may serve to introduce curious or instructive matter of comparison. To every person well acquainted with the subject, many things will probably occur, of which the omission may be regretted. Completeness, however, is evidently unattainable in an undertaking of this sort, and the passages taken from Grecian history have necessarily been regulated in part by the correspondences which presented themselves in the histories of other nations. It has been our object to draw examples from a great variety of sources; from different countries, in different ages, and in different states of civilization: and to show that no particular virtues or vices have been inherent in any age or nation: believing that human nature and human passions are everywhere alike, and that the great differences in national character are mainly to be ascribed to external circumstances and training. Comparisons of contrast, therefore, are no less valuable than comparisons of resemblance, when we can trace the causes which have produced a difference in conduct. It only remains to add, that we have not always thought it necessary to require a close analogy either of motives or of actions.

The instances chosen have not been very strictly confined to what rests upon undoubted testimony. Perhaps we learn little less of the habits and opinions of men, from ascertaining what they have believed of others, than from knowing what they have done themselves; and, therefore, even works of fiction may be resorted to in some degree, care being taken to distinguish the character of the authorities. For example, we should have no hesitation in quoting even from the Mort d’Arthur, and still more from the earlier romances on which it is founded, in illustration of the manners of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, in which those romances were written; or, though on different grounds, the admirable narratives of the plagues of Florence and London by Boccaccio and Defoe, which probably are no less trustworthy for the character of the narrative, and in a great degree for the facts themselves, than Thucydides’ description of the plague at Athens. Again, there is a sort of debateable ground, where genuine history begins to gain the ascendant over fable, as in the case of Aristomenes and Wallace, where we cannot tell, nor is it important to know, the exact measure of truth contained in the legends concerning them. The outlines of their lives we have reason to believe to be correct, and rejecting from their exploits all that is grossly improbable, the remainder will furnish us with a sufficiently clear idea of the accomplishments and adventures of a warrior of their respective ages. The poem of Blind Harry abounds in improbable fictions, but much more information concerning Wallace and his contemporaries may be gained from it than from the meagre chronicles which composed the graver literature of the age. From such sources, therefore, we shall not scruple to borrow, though not without advertising the reader of their nature, and endeavouring, where necessary, to draw the boundary line between truth and fiction.

For reasons above stated, our extracts have usually been taken from contemporary authors, or at least from the earliest authorities extant. Where this rule has been departed from, it is because the originals offer no striking passages to select, and are too prolix to be given entire. In this case, condensation becomes necessary, and we have gladly availed ourselves of the labours of others who have already performed that task, in preference to seeking novelty at the expense perhaps of accuracy or elegance. For the same reason existing translations have been used, whenever a good translation of the particular passage could be found. Where none such occurred, we have endeavoured to adhere closely to our author, and even where his narrative has been much compressed, to give, as far as was possible, not only his substance, but his words.

ill011

CHAPTER I.

Mythic period of Grecian history—Savage state of Greece compared with that of Scandinavia—Anecdotes of Northern warriors—Hercules—Theseus—State of Greece in their time, illustrated by that of England subsequent to the Conquest—Argonautic expedition—Theban war—Story of Don Pedro of Castile—Trojan war.

The traditions from which our knowledge of what is called the mythic age of Greece, or the age of fable, from the earliest notices of it to the Trojan war, is almost entirely derived, furnish few materials for a work like this, for where everything is misty and undefined, there can be little opportunity for comparison. The wonderful poetic talent displayed in their narration and embellishment has, however, given them a place in history, and an importance otherwise undeserved, and men study the actions and genealogy of an Achaian prince, as gravely as if he had been really the descendant of Jupiter, and the conqueror of monsters and oppressors innumerable. It becomes the more interesting therefore to inquire into the actual condition of Greece in its earliest times, and ascertain, if possible, whether the godlike men, sprung from the Gods, of whose superhuman powers and exploits succeeding ages have read, until by the mere force of repetition they have half believed them, had in reality any advantage over barbarians of other races and regions. To guide us in the inquiry we have two sorts of information, totally distinct in their nature: the meagre notices of authentic history, and a copious store of mythological and poetical legends. So far as the former is available, we have no reason to think that the heroic age had much advantage over those dark times in which the foundations of modern Europe were laid. Passing over the account given by Thucydides of the earliest inhabitants of Greece as being applicable to any savage race, in the next stage of society, when the arts had somewhat advanced, in the reign of Minos, the first person perhaps of whom any rational and credible account is given, a code of honour existed which made strength not only the first but the sum–total of all virtues, and filled the sea with pirates and the land with robbers.

“Minos was the most ancient of all that by report we know to have built a navy, and he made himself master of the now Grecian sea, and both commanded the Isles called Cyclades,[2] and also was the first who sent colonies into most of the same, expelling thence the Carians, and constituting his own sons there for governors, and also freed the sea from pirates as much as he could, for the better coming in, as is likely, of his own revenue.

“For the Grecians in old time and such barbarians[3] as in the continent lived near unto the sea or else inhabited the islands, when they began more often to cross over to one another in ships, became thieves, and went abroad under the conduct of their most puissant men, both to enrich themselves and to fetch in maintenance for the weak: and falling upon towns unfortified, and scatteringly inhabited, rifled them, and made this the best means of their living; being at that time a matter nowhere in disgrace, but rather carrying with it something of glory. This is manifest by some that dwell on the continent, among whom, so it be performed nobly, it is still esteemed as an ornament. The same also is proved by some of the ancient poets, who introduce men questioning such as sail by, on all coasts alike, whether they be thieves or not;[4] as a thing neither scorned by such as were asked, nor upbraided by those that were desirous to know. They also robbed one another within the main land: and much of Greece useth that old custom, as the Locrians called Ozolæ (or Stinkards), the Acarnanians, and those of the continent in that quarter unto this day. Moreover the fashion of wearing iron remaineth yet with the people of that continent from their old trade of thieving.

“For once they were wont throughout all Greece to go armed, because their houses were unfenced and travelling unsafe, and accustomed themselves like the barbarians to the ordinary wearing of their armour. And the nations of Greece that live so yet, do testify that the same manner of life was anciently universal to all the rest.”[5]

A condition of society identical with that described in the latter part of this extract still exists among the Curdish and Caucasian and other Asiatic mountaineers, and existed till lately in the Scottish Highlands. But descriptions of the latter have been multiplied, until they have become familiar in men’s mouths as household terms; and we pass in preference to a less hackneyed subject. In the eighth and ninth centuries the piratical spirit of ancient Greece was revived among those fierce Danes and Norwegians, who led a life of constant rapine and bloodshed; of interminable warfare at home, of frightful devastation abroad. “The Sea–kings of the North were a race of beings whom Europe beheld with horror. Without a yard of territorial property, with no wealth but their ships, no force but their crews, and no hope but from their swords, they swarmed upon the boisterous ocean, and plundered in every district that they could approach.... It is declared to have been a law or custom in the North, that one of the male children should be selected to remain at home to inherit the government. The rest were exiled to the ocean, to wield their sceptres amid the turbulent waters. The consent of the northern societies entitled all men of royal descent, who assumed piracy as a profession, to enjoy the name of kings, though they possessed no territory. The sea–kings had the same honour, but they were only a portion of those pirates, or vikingr, who in the ninth century were covering the ocean. Not only the children of the kings, but every man of importance equipped ships, and roamed the seas to acquire property by force. Piracy was not only the most honourable occupation and the best harvest of wealth; it was not only consecrated to public estimation by the illustrious who pursued it, but no one was esteemed noble, no one was respected, who did not return in the winter to his home with ships laden with booty.”[6] Part of the regulations of a band of pirates is preserved by Bartholinus, and may serve as a specimen of the better class, though the reader may not be inclined to agree with him in considering them as men “devoted to virtue, bravery, and humanity, rather than to the oppression of innocent persons.” These regulations were called the Constitutions of King Half. “No one might wear a sword more than an ell in length, that they might be compelled to close in battle. Each was to be equal in strength to twelve ordinary men. They made prisoners neither women nor boys. None was to bind his wounds until the lapse of twenty hours. These men everywhere infested the land, and everywhere were victorious. They lay at anchor at the ends of headlands. They never raised bulwarks on their ships’ sides, and never lowered their sails, let the wind blow as it would. Their captain never had in his ship more than sixty men.” No less creditable were the ordinances of Hialmar, the sum of which was, that his men should plunder neither traders nor husbandmen; that they should neither rob women of their money, nor carry them off against their consent: and should not eat raw flesh.[7] The fiercer class indulged in this disgusting food, and washed it down suitably with draughts of blood. Savage in all things, it was an amusement to toss infants from one to another, and catch them on the points of their lances. Many used to work themselves literally into a state of bestial ferocity. Those who were subject to these paroxysms were called Berserkir: they studied to resemble wild beasts; they excited themselves to a strength which has been compared to that of bears; and this unnatural power was succeeded, as we may well suppose, by corresponding debility. In the French and Italian romances, we frequently find a warrior endowed, for a part of the day, with a double or treble share of strength; and it is not improbable that the fiction may have been derived from this species of frenzy, which is thus described by the Danish historian, Saxo Grammaticus. “Sivald had seven sons, so skilled in magic, that, impelled by the sudden access of fury, they used often to howl savagely, to gnaw their shields, to devour live coals, and rush fearlessly into fire; and this passion could only be appeased by confinement in fetters, or by human blood.” This Sivald and Haldan were rivals for the Swedish crown. Sivald challenged Haldan to decide their quarrel by contending alone with himself and his seven sons. The latter answered that the legitimate form of the duel did not admit of more than two. “No wonder,” replied his antagonist, “that a man without wife or offspring, whose mind and body are alike deficient in warmth, should refuse the proffered encounter. But my children, who own me as the author of their existence, and myself, have one common origin, and must be considered as one man.” The force of the argument was admitted, and, in obedience to this modest request, Haldan knocked out the brains of the eight.

The same warrior was challenged by another Berserkir, named Harthben, who always had twelve chosen men in attendance to prevent his doing mischief when the fit was upon him. Upon hearing that Haldan undertook to fight himself and his followers, he was seized with a paroxysm which was not subdued until he had killed six of them, by way of trying his hand: and then he was killed by his antagonist, as he richly deserved, for throwing away half his chance.[8] So also we read that Odin could blunt the weapons of his enemies; that his soldiers went to battle without armour, biting their shields, raging like wolves or dogs: like bears or bulls in strength, they slaughtered their foes, and were themselves invulnerable to fire and sword.[9] At length, however, this passion changed from a distinction to a reproach, and was ultimately prohibited by penal laws.

Harold Harfager, or the Fairhaired, who consolidated Norway under his sceptre, A.D. 910, cleared the Northern Ocean from the scourge of piracy, as did Minos the Grecian seas. Still the spirit of depredation was alive. The spread of Christianity moderated the excesses of the Northmen, but it was long ere their fondness for freebooting was extinguished; nay, the very rites of religion were employed to give a sanction to robbery. Maritime expeditions seemed to the Danes pious and necessary, that they might protect themselves from the incursions of their Sclavonic neighbours on the continent, and piracy was therefore practised under certain laws, which in the opinion of Bartholinus breathe a spirit of defence rather than of aggression. “Pirates had power to take such ships as appeared suited to their purpose, even without consent of the owners, upon payment of one–eighth of the booty by way of hire. Before a voyage they made confession to the priests, and having undergone penance, they received the sacrament, as if at the point of death, believing that things would go more prosperously if they duly propitiated God before war. Content with their food and armour, they avoided burdening their vessels, and took nothing that could delay their voyage. Their watches were frequent, their mode of life sparing. They slept leaning upon their oars. Their battles were numerous: their victory ever easy, and almost bloodless. The booty was shared equally, the master receiving no larger portion than a common rower. Those Christians whom they found enslaved in the captured vessels, they presented with clothing, and dismissed to their own homes.”[10]

The frantic ravages of these barbarians have been described by the sufferers, and belong in part to our own history; while those committed by the unknown tribes who two thousand years before occupied the other extremity of Europe, are long since forgotten, or remembered only in the flattering traditions of their countrymen. The former, therefore, are known and execrated, while the latter stand fair with the world: and in the absence of evidence, we are far from wishing to impute to them that bestial ferocity which so often disgraced the Northmen: but who can compare the passages just given with that quoted from Thucydides, without being convinced that they refer to corresponding periods of civilization, and describe similar principles, if not similar modes of action? And as the best historical accounts which we can procure represent the feelings and habits of the early Greeks as closely akin to those of our own barbarous ancestors, so their traditions and fables lead us to the same conclusion. The Scaldic poems bear, indeed, a more savage cast; some say from the inhospitable rigour of our northern sky; but more probably because we possess them in their original or nearly their original state, while the earliest Greek compositions extant were written in an age comparatively civilized. But the heroes of both were actuated by the same spirit. Siegfrid and Wolf Dietrich differ little but in external ornament from Castor, or Achilles, or Diomed; their pride was in the same accomplishments, their delight in the same pleasures, their hope in an immortality of the same sensual enjoyments.[11]

Some sketch of the life of Starchaterus, a purely fictitious person, may serve as a specimen of these stories.

Starchaterus was born in Sweden, a few years after the Christian era. He was of giant stature, and of strength and courage correspondent to the magnitude of his frame, so that in prowess he was held inferior to none of mortal parentage; and, as he excelled all in bodily endowments, so his life was protracted to three times the usual duration of human existence. Like his great prototype, the Grecian Hercules, he traversed the neighbouring regions, and went even to Ireland and Constantinople in quest of adventures; but, unlike him, he was animated by a most intolerant hatred of everything approaching to luxury, insomuch that he treated an invitation to dinner as an insult, and inflicted severe punishment upon all who were so imprudently hospitable as to request his company. For it was the mark of a buffoon and parasite, he said, to run after the smell of another man’s kitchen, for the sake of better fare.[12] In other respects the severity of his manners was more commendable; when he found any of the classes who live by the follies or vices of mankind mixing with soldiers, he drove them away with the scourge, esteeming them unworthy to receive death from the hands of brave men. In addition to his other accomplishments, he was skilled in poetry, and persecuted luxury in verse no less successfully than by corporeal inflictions, as is evident from certain of his compositions, which have been translated into Latin by Saxo Grammaticus.

He went to Russia on purpose to fight Visin, who possessed the power of blunting weapons with a look, and trusting in this magic power, exercised all sorts of cruelty and oppression. Starchaterus rendered the charm of no avail by covering his sword with thin leather, and then obtained an easy victory.

Nine warriors of tried valour offered to Helgo, king of Norway, the alternative of doing battle singly against the nine, or losing his bride upon his marriage–day. Helgo thought it best to appear by his champion, and requested the assistance of Starchaterus, who was so eager for the adventure, that in following Helgo to the appointed place, in one day, and on foot, he performed a journey which had occupied the king, who travelled on horseback, during twelve days. On the morrow, which was the appointed day, ascending a mountain, which was the place of meeting, he chose a spot exposed to the wind and snow, and then, as if it were spring, throwing off his clothes, he set himself to dislodge the fleas that nestled in them. Then the nine warriors ascended the mountain on the other side, and showed the difference of their hardihood by lighting a fire in a sheltered spot. Not perceiving their antagonist, one went to look out from the mountain top, who saw at a distance an old man covered with snow up to the shoulders. They asked him if it were he who was to fight with them, and being answered in the affirmative, inquired further, whether he would receive them singly or all together. His reply was rather more churlish than the question deserved: “When the dogs bark at me, I drive them off all together, and not one by one.” Then, after a severe battle, he slew them all.

At last, being overtaken by age, he thought it fit to terminate his life before his glory was dimmed by decrepitude; for men used to consider it disgraceful for a warrior to perish by sickness. So he hung round his neck one hundred and twenty pounds of gold, the spoil of one Olo, to buy the good offices of an executioner, thinking it fit that the wealth which he had obtained by another man’s death should be spent in procuring his own. And meeting Hather, whose father he had formerly slain, he exhorted him to take vengeance for that injury, and pointed out what he would gain by doing so. Hather willingly consented, and Starchaterus, stretching out his neck, bade him strike boldly, adding, for his encouragement, that if he leaped between the severed head and the trunk before the latter touched the earth, he would become invincible in arms. Now, whether he said this out of good will, or to be quits with his slayer, who ran a good chance of being crushed by the falling giant, is doubtful. The head, stricken off at a blow, bit the earth, retaining its ferocity in death: but Starchaterus’ real meaning remained unknown, for Hather showed his prudence by declining to take a leap, which had he taken, he might never have leaped again.[13]

This is an early and rude specimen of an errant knight; the same character which was afterwards expanded into Roland and Launcelot, the paladins and peers of Charlemagne and Arthur, worthies closely allied to the heroes of Homer and Hesiod. The triple–bodied Geryon, the Nemean lion and Lernæan hydra, the deliverance of Andromeda by Perseus, the capture of the golden fleece, and above all, perhaps, Amycus, who compelled all strangers to box with him, till he was beaten by Pollux, and bound by oath to renounce the practice, are entirely in unison with the spirit and imagery of chivalric romance. Examples to this effect might easily be multiplied. But an essay on the fictions of the Greeks would be foreign to the scope of this publication: and it would be absurd to enter upon a critical investigation of a series of stories, extended by some chronologers over seven centuries, from the foundation of Argos to the Trojan war, while Newton contracts them within a century and a half, which tell of little but bloodshed, abductions, and violence of all sorts, intermixed, however, with notices of those who invented the useful arts and fostered the gradual progress of civilization. As we approach to the Trojan war, a sort of twilight history begins to dawn upon us. It is to what may seem at first the strongholds of fiction, to the exploits of Hercules and Theseus, that we refer. The earliest ascertained fact is the establishment of a regular government by Minos, who also cleared the sea from pirates. At no long interval the above–named heroes made another step in civilization; they cleared the land from rapine, as Minos had cleared the sea. Other men, roaming in search of adventures, had carried bloodshed through the land at the suggestion of their passions or for the advancement of their fame; but Hercules first traversed the earth with the express design of avenging the oppressed and exterminating their oppressors, and the example was soon after followed by his kinsman Theseus. Their exploits, of course, are chiefly fabulous: but it is worthy of observation that those of Theseus approach much nearer to probability than the far–famed labours of Hercules. Indeed the history of the former presents this peculiarity, that the accounts of his youth are consistent, and scarcely improbable, while those of his age run into all the extravagance of romance. Theseus, travelling from Trœzen to Athens, was strongly urged to go by sea, the way by land being beset with robbers and murderers. He refused to do so, being inflamed with emulation of Hercules’ renown; and on the journey signalized himself by slaying Sinnis, surnamed the Pine–bender, because he dismembered travellers by tying them to the tops of trees forcibly brought together and then allowed to start asunder; Procrustes, who exhibited a passion for uniformity worthy a German general of the old school, in reducing all men to the measure of his own bed, by stretching those who were too short, and docking those who were too long; together with others of less note, and similar habits. That Plutarch believed in these stories is evident, from the tone in which he recites them; a corroboration, indeed, of no great weight, for he proceeds with equal gravity to relate things which no one will credit; but in this instance his account of the state of Greece gives warranty for his belief, and is itself confirmed by our knowledge of later ages. The passage has often been quoted, but it is striking and to the purpose, and its want of novelty, therefore, shall be no bar to its insertion. “The world at that time brought forth men, which for strongness in their arms, for swiftness of their feet, and for a general strength of the whole body, did far pass the common force of others, and were never weary for any labour or travail they took in hand. But for all this, they never employed these gifts of nature to any honest or profitable thing; but rather delighted villainously to hurt and wrong others; as if all the fruit and profit of their extraordinary strength had consisted in cruelty and violence only, and to be able to keep others under and in subjection; and to force, destroy, and spoil all that came to their hands. Thinking that the more part of those which think it a shame to do ill, and commend justice, equity, and humanity, do it of faint, cowardly hearts, because they dare not wrong others, for fear they should receive wrong themselves; and, therefore, that they which by might could have vantage over others, had nothing to do with such qualities.”[14]

The enormities ascribed to Sinnis and his fellows have discredited the whole train of adventures to which they belong; but this is an untenable ground of doubt. He who reads descriptions of the state of England, before laws were strong enough to control private violence, given by contemporaries who saw what they relate, and whose narratives bear the impress of sincerity, will better appreciate the extent of human ferocity. In the reign of Stephen disorder was at its height. “The barons cruelly oppressed the wretched men of the land with castle–works, and when the castles were made, they filled them with devils and evil men. Then took they those whom they supposed to have any goods, both by night and day, labouring men and women, and threw them into the prison for their gold and silver, and inflicted on them unutterable tortures: for never were any martyrs so tortured as they were. Some they hanged up by the feet, and smoked them with foul smoke, and some by the thumbs, or the head, and hung coats of mail on their feet. They tied knotted cords about their heads, and twisted them until the pain went to their brains. They put them into dungeons where were adders, and snakes, and toads, and so destroyed them. Some they placed in a crucet house; that is, in a chest that was short and narrow, and not deep, wherein they put sharp stones, and so thrust the man therein, that they broke all the limbs. In many of the castles were things loathsome and grim, called Sachenteges, of which two or three men had enough to bear one. They were thus made: they were fastened to a beam, having a sharp iron to go about a man’s throat, so that he could in no direction either sit, or lie, or sleep, but bear all that iron. Many thousands they wore out with hunger. I neither can, nor may I tell all the wounds and pains which they inflicted on wretched men in this land.”[15]

“Some, seeing the sweetness of their country turned into bitterness, went into foreign parts: others built hovels about churches in hope of security, and there passed life in fear and pain, subsisting for lack of food (for famine was felt dreadfully over all England) upon the forbidden and unused flesh of dogs and horses, or relieving hunger with raw herbs and roots, until throughout the provinces men, wasted by famine, died in crowds, or went voluntarily with their families into a miserable exile. You might see towns of famous name, standing lonely, and altogether emptied by the death of their inhabitants of all ages and sexes; the fields whitening under a thriving harvest, but the husbandman cut off by pestilential famine ere it ripened: and all England wore the face of grief and calamity, of misery and oppression. In addition to these evils, the savage multitude of barbarians who resorted to England for the gains of warfare was moved neither by the bowels of piety nor by any feeling of human compassion for such misery: everywhere they conspired from their castles to do all wickedness, being always at leisure to rob the poor, to promote quarrels, and intent everywhere upon slaughter with all the malice of a wicked mind.” Even churchmen amused themselves with these pastimes. “The bishops themselves, as I am ashamed to say, not all indeed, but many of them, clad in handsome armour, rode up and down on prancing horses with these upsetters of their country; shared in their booty; exposed to fetters, or torture, knights, or any wealthy persons soever, whom they intercepted; and being themselves the head and cause of all this wickedness, they threw the blame not on themselves, but only upon their followers.”[16]

Enough of general descriptions, which are fully borne out by the particulars related. “In the reign of Stephen, Robert, the son of Hubert, had gotten possession of the castle of Devizes. He was a man exceeding all within memory in barbarity and blasphemy, who used freely to make boast, that he had been present when twenty–four monks were burnt together with their church, and profess that he would do as much in England, and ruin utterly the abbey of Malmesbury. If he ever dismissed a prisoner unransomed, and without the torture, which very seldom happened, at such times, when they thanked him in God’s name, I have with these ears heard him answer, ‘God will never own the obligation to me.’ He would expose his captives naked to the burning sun, anointed with honey, to attract flies, and such other tormenting insects.”[17] This worthy met with a fit end, being taken and hanged; but this act of retribution was one of illegal violence, being done by a knight who held Marlborough Castle, without a shadow of authority, and apparently on the principle that any one had a right to abate a nuisance.

“In these times (the reign of William Rufus) men come not to great name but by the highest wickedness. Thomas, a great baron near Laudun in France, was great in name, because he was extreme in wickedness. At enmity with the surrounding churches, he had brought all their wealth into his own exchequer. If any one by force or guile were holden in his keeping, truly might that man say, ‘the pains of hell got hold upon me.’ Murder was his glory and delight. Against all usage, he placed a countess in a dungeon, whom the foul ruffian harassed with fetters and torments to extort money. He would speak words of peace to his neighbour, and stab him to the heart with a smile, and hence, under his cloak, he more often wore his sword naked than sheathed. Therefore, men feared, respected, worshipped him. All through France was he spoken of. Daily did his estate, his treasure, his vassalage increase. Wouldst thou hear the end of this villain? Being stricken with a sword unto death, refusing to repent, and turning away his head from the Lord’s body, in such manner he perished: so that it might well be said, ‘Befitting to your life was that death.’ You have seen Robert de Belesme, a Norman baron, who when established in his castle was Pluto, Megæra, Cerberus, or anything that can be named more dreadful. He took pains not to dismiss, but to dispatch his captives. Pretending to be in play, he put out his son’s eyes with his thumbs, while he was muffled up in a cloak; he impaled persons of both sexes. Horrid slaughter was as a meat pleasant to his soul: therefore was he found in all men’s mouths, so that the wonderful doings of Robert de Belesme passed into proverbs. Let us come at length to the end. He who had afflicted others in prison, being at last thrown into prison by King Henry, ended his wicked life by an enduring punishment.”[18]

It was this state of disorder which produced knight–errantry, and there is nothing absurd in believing that equal lawlessness in another country was checked by the same sort of interference. The reality of knight–errantry has, indeed, been questioned; it has been pronounced a fiction, suited to the wants of the period in which it was supposed to exist. If this were so, and the tales of Hercules and Theseus equally groundless, it would still be curious to see that men had been led to imagine the same means of making amends for the want of an executive power: but we do not believe this to be the case. The romances gave system and consistency to the scattered acts of individuals; they described the better qualities of knighthood in their own days, and filled up the picture with imaginary virtues and preter–human prowess, attributes which men are always ready to confer on their ancestors, as Nestor makes the heroes with whom he fought in youth far superior to those whom he lectured in old age, and Homer endows those who fought under Troy with the strength of three or four men, “such as mortals now are.” But their productions bear the stamp of copies, not originals, and it is not very easy to believe that they would have invented, or their audience and readers relished, characters and rules of action for which their own experience gave no warrant.

There is, however, a double Theseus, of historic as well as legendary fame. In his latter capacity, both for the degree of reality and the nature of his exploits, he may be compared to Arthur; in his former, still to draw an illustration from British history, he is not unworthy to be placed by the side of Alfred. The union of these two, discordant as it may appear, is not more so than that of the poetic and the historical Theseus. Alfred, indeed, signalised his military talents in many hard–fought fields, but his victories were those of a general: the exploits of Theseus were those of a knight. But among the mass of stories of questionable truth or unquestioned falsehood relating to him, it is generally acknowledged that this man, whose very existence we might else have doubted, was the author of extensive and judicious reforms in government, such as proved the foundation of Attic greatness: reforms which he effected by the rarest and most virtuous of all sacrifices, the resignation of his own power.[19] Attica was divided into twelve districts, shires we might call them, except that, taken all together, they were less than one of the larger English counties. Professedly forming one body, and owning a precarious obedience to one prince, they had still their petty and conflicting interests, and could with difficulty be induced to concur in any measures for the benefit of the whole. Theseus, encouraged by the popularity which he had gained by delivering Athens from its subjection to Crete,[20] undertook to substitute a better polity. “He went through the several towns, and persuaded the inhabitants to give up their separate councils and magistrates, and submit to a common jurisdiction. Every man was to retain his dwelling and his property as before; but justice was to be administered and all public business transacted at Athens. The mass of the people came into his measures, and to subdue the reluctance of the powerful, who were loath to resign the importance accruing from the local magistracies, he gave up much of his own authority, reserving only the command of the army, and the care of watching over the execution of the laws. Opposition was silenced by his liberality, together with the fear of his power, ability, and courage, and the union of Attica was effected by him and made lasting. To bind it closer, without disturbing the religious observances of the several towns, he instituted a common festival in honour of Minerva, which was called the feast of union, and (Panathenæa) the feast of all the Athenians.”[21]

This process bears some resemblance to the consolidation of the Saxon Heptarchy, nominally effected by Egbert, but completed and made truly beneficial by Alfred. The evils which were to be reformed were very different in the two cases: at Athens civil dissension was to be remedied; in England a rude people, intermixed with foreign barbarians more ferocious than themselves, and reduced to poverty by a series of destructive invasions, required a strong curb for the re–establishment of order and security. We must not expect, therefore, to find any resemblance between their institutions: the Saxons required no measures to prevent civil war, and inspire a spirit of nationality; the Athenians, though well inclined to civil broils, respected, from the earliest dawn of history, the security of property, and in consequence far outstripped the rest of Greece in wealth and refinement. Nevertheless the names of these princes may fairly be selected to adorn the same page: both advanced beyond their age in legislative and political science; both directed their wisdom, power, and popularity to truly noble ends; and therefore merit the respect of all who believe rank and office to have been instituted for other ends than for the advantage of those who possess them.

We have spoken of Hercules and Theseus as indicating the commencement of Grecian history. Previous to them, facts are mentioned which we have no ground to disbelieve, as the various settlements by Phœnician or Egyptian emigrants; but all further particulars of these persons, with the exception of Minos, are of such a nature, that where we find no internal evidence to pronounce them fabulous we can yet assign but scanty reasons for relying confidently upon their truth. But about this era our knowledge begins to increase. We must refer to it an event of which it is not easy to fix the date with certainty; namely, the celebrated Argonautic expedition, in which both these heroes are said to have joined: a statement, however, irreconcileable with the accounts of Theseus’ introduction to Ægeus, and the plot formed against him by Medea.[22] Without troubling ourselves to account for these discrepancies, it is evident that the expedition, if it ever took place, which there seems reason to believe in spite of Bryant’s opposition, who would ascribe this, and almost all other legends, to some faint traditions of the deluge and preservation of Noah, must have borne a close resemblance to the Danish piratical excursions which we have already described. Not long after occurs the first confederate war mentioned in Grecian history, that of the Seven against Thebes;[23] an event so closely connected with mythology that its reality might reasonably be questioned, but for the testimony of Homer and Hesiod. The revolting nature of the struggle between two brothers, for the kingdom of a banished, miserable, and neglected father, would incline us indeed to give as little credit to the concluding tragedy of the house of Laius, as to the series of crimes and misery by which that house had been polluted: but all arguments founded upon the horrors of such fratricidal warfare fall to the ground, when in the brightest period of chivalry we find it revived with no less rancour, and a no less fatal end, and the flower of French knighthood a calm spectator, nay, almost an actor in the scene. The strife between Don Pedro of Castile, and his brother Henry of Transtamara, the deadly struggle in which Pedro, who had already slain one brother, fell, when defeated and a prisoner, by the dagger of another against whom his own hand was armed, involve circumstances of horror scarce less adapted to dramatic effect than those legends which have so often employed the Greek tragedians.

Don Pedro was the legitimate heir to the crown of Castile. Don Henry and Don Fadrique (or Frederick) were his half–brothers by Donna Leonora de Guzman, whom their father had entertained as his mistress, and even proclaimed queen, during the life–time of his lawful wife. When Pedro succeeded to the throne, at his mother’s instigation he put her rival to death: his brothers, Henry and Fadrique, escaped, and the former renounced his allegiance: the latter fled into Portugal; but after some time he made his peace, returned, and was appointed master of the order of St. Iago. When several months had elapsed, he was invited to join the court at Seville, and take his share in the amusements of an approaching tournament. He accepted the invitation, but was sternly and ominously received, and immediately executed within the palace. The friends of Pedro asserted, that the king had, that very day, detected Don Fadrique in a correspondence with his brother Henry and the Arragonese; while popular belief attributed the slaughter of the master to the influence of Pedro’s mistress, Maria de Padilla. The circumstances of this event are powerfully described in one of the Spanish ballads, so admirably translated by Mr. Lockhart. There is a peculiarity of construction in the ballad, the person of the narrator being changed in the course of it. It is commenced by the victim himself, who describes the alacrity with which he obeyed his brother’s summons.

I sat alone in Coimbra—the town myself had ta’en,—

When came into my chamber a messenger from Spain:

There was no treason in his look, an honest look he wore,

I from his hand the letter took—my brother’s seal it bore.

“Come, brother dear, the day draws near (’twas thus bespoke the king)

For plenar court and nightly sport, within the listed ring.”

Alas, unhappy master, I easy credence lent:

Alas, for fast and faster I at his bidding went.

When I set out from Coimbra, and passed the bounds of Spain,

I had a goodly company of spearmen in my train;

A gallant force, a score of horse, and sturdy mules thirteen;

With joyful heart I held my course, my years were young and green.

A journey of good fifteen days within the week was done,

I halted not, though signs I got, dark tokens many a one;

A strong stream mastered horse and mule, I lost a poniard fine,

And left a page within the pool, a faithful page of mine.

Yet on to proud Seville I rode—when to the gate I came,

Before it stood a man of God to warn me from the same:

The words he spake I would not hear, his grief I would not see;

“I seek,” I said, “my brother dear—I will not stop for thee.”

No lists were closed upon the sand, for royal tourney dight,

No pawing horse was seen to stand, I saw no armed knight:

Yet aye I gave my mule the spur, and hasted through the town,

I stopt before his palace–door, then gaily leapt I down.

They shut the door—my trusty score of friends were left behind;

I would not hear their whispered fear, no harm was in my mind;

I greeted Pedro, but he turned—I wot his look was cold;

His brother from his knee he spurned—“Stand off, thou master bold.

“Stand off, stand off, thou traitor strong!” ‘twas thus he saith to me,

“Thy time on earth shall not be long—what brings thee to my knee?

My lady craves a new year’s gift, and I will keep my word;

Thy head methinks may serve the shift—good yeoman, draw thy sword—“

The master lay upon the floor, ere well that word was said,

Then in a charger off they bore his pale and bloody head.

They brought it to Padilla’s chair, they bowed them on the knee—

“King Pedro greets thee, lady fair, his gift he sends to thee.”

She gazed upon the master’s head, her scorn it could not scare,

And cruel were the words she spoke, and proud her glances were.

“Thou now shalt pay, thou traitor base, the debt of many a year,

My dog shall lick that haughty face, no more that lip shall sneer.”

She seized it by the clotted hair, and o’er the window flung:

The mastiff smelt it in his lair, forth at her cry he sprung;

The mastiff that had crouched so low, to lick the master’s hand,

He tossed the morsel to and fro, and licked it on the sand.

And ever as the mastiff tore, his bloody teeth were shown,

With growl and snort he made his sport, and picked it to the bone!

The baying of the beast was loud; and swiftly on the street

There gathered round a gaping crowd to see the mastiff eat.

Then out and spake King Pedro—“What governance is this?

The rabble rout the gate without torment my dogs, I wiss.”

Then out and spake King Pedro’s page—“It is the master’s head,

The mastiff tears it in his rage, therewith they have him fed.”

Then out and spake the ancient nurse, that nursed the brothers twain—

“On thee, King Pedro, lies the curse; thy brother thou hast slain;

A thousand harlots there may be within the realms of Spain,

But where is she can give to thee thy brother back again?”

Came darkness o’er King Pedro’s brow, when thus he heard her say;

He sorely rued the accursed vow he had fulfilled that day;

He passed unto his paramour, where on her couch she lay.

Leaning from out her painted bower, to see the mastiff’s play.

He drew her to a dungeon dark, a dungeon strong and deep;

“My father’s son lies stiff and stark, and there are few to weep.

Fadrique’s blood for vengeance calls, his cry is in mine ear;

Thou art the cause, thou harlot false; in darkness lie thou here.”

After Pedro had alienated his people’s hearts by his cruelty, Don Henry returned with a formidable body of French auxiliaries. At first the fortune of the rightful owner of the throne, who was supported by Edward the Black Prince, prevailed, and the invader was obliged to retire back to France: but suddenly renewing the attack, assisted by Du Guesclin, the flower of French knighthood, after the English auxiliaries had quitted Spain, he defeated and took prisoner his brother. Upon entering the chamber where he was confined, Henry exclaimed, “Where is that whoreson and Jew, who calls himself King of Castile?” Pedro, as proud and fearless as he was cruel, stepped instantly forward, and replied, “Here I stand, the lawful son and heir of Don Alphonso, and it is thou that art but a false bastard.” The rival brothers instantly grappled like lions; the French knights, and Du Guesclin himself, looking on. Henry drew his poniard, and wounded Pedro in the face, but his body was protected by a coat of mail. A violent struggle ensued. Henry fell across a bench, and his brother, being uppermost, had well nigh mastered him, when one of Henry’s followers seizing Don Pedro by the leg, turned him over, and his master thus at length gaining the upper hand, instantly stabbed the king to the heart. Menard, in his history of Du Guesclin, says that, while all around gazed like statues on the furious struggle of the brothers, Du Guesclin exclaimed to this attendant of Henry, “What! will you stand by, and see your master placed at such a pass by a false renegade? Make forward and help him, for well you may.”[24]

At Athens, the poets who contended for the tragic prize, were expected to exhibit three pieces, which, from their number, were called collectively a trilogy, together with a fourth, satirical, drama, which came last in the order of representation, like our farces now. Often they chose for the argument of these tragedies different events in the same story, so that the three formed a connected whole: of which an instance, the only instance extant, remains in the Agamemnon, Choephoroi, and Eumenides of Æschylus. The tale which has just been narrated is well fitted for this kind of representation, and would furnish materials not unworthy even of that poet’s genius. In the first play we may imagine an insulted queen and deserted wife, brooding over past injuries, rejoicing in the prospect of revenge, and urging the savage temper of her son to seek it in the blood of those who should have been dearest to him; the play terminating with the death of Leonora de Guzman, and the escape of her sons, preserved, like Orestes, to be at once the ministers of vengeance and the instruments of further crime. For the second the unsuspecting confidence of Don Fadrique, his rejection of the signs and warnings, which were offered in vain, and the successful machinations of a wicked, perhaps a rejected woman, acting upon the proud and cruel Pedro, are well suited; while the chorus would find a fitting part, at first, in dark and indistinct presages of evil, and lamentations over the blindness with which the fated victim rushed into the snare; and at the end, in indignant description of the circumstances of horror narrated in the ballad, and in joining the aged nurse to bewail the death of her foster son, and denouncing vengeance upon the murderer’s head. The third would contain the capture of Pedro, the mutual defiance and death–struggle of the brothers, and the barbarous exposure by Henry of his brother’s corpse: while at the end the impression of these horrors might be relieved by the constant love of Maria de Padilla, who, now neglected and despised, still watched over the forsaken body of her monarch and lover, with a fidelity worthy of a purer bosom.[25]

We reach at length the Trojan war, the point assumed by Thucydides for the commencement of his sketch of Grecian history: a circumstance alone sufficient to discredit the scepticism of those who believe it to be a mere fabulous legend. The universal voice of antiquity testifies to its reality, and we know not of any arguments strong enough to shake this testimony. Herodotus, on the authority of the Persians, mentions the Rape of Helen as one of a series of reprisals consequent upon the aggression of the Phœnicians, who carried off Io; the cause and commencement of hostility between the Greeks and the Asiatic nations. The former were clearly in the wrong, in the opinion of the Persians, both because the rape of Helen only balanced accounts, and because the Greeks made such injuries a ground for war. “Up to that time they confined themselves to mutual depredations; but the Greeks set the example of carrying war from one continent to the other. Now, to carry off women is the act of rogues; but to be over eager to avenge their loss is the part of fools; and wise men will take no thought for them after they are gone: for it is plain that they would not have been run away with, except with their own good will. And in truth, say the Persians, the Asiatics made no account of the carrying off their women: but the Greeks collected a mighty armament on account of a Lacedæmonian female, and then came to Asia, to pull down the empire of Priam!”[26] So thought the Persians. Herodotus confesses that he is not prepared to say how these things took place, and sets us the example of hastening to ground which he can tread with some certainty. That there is no intrinsic improbability in the story, has already been asserted by Mitford, on the ground of its close analogy to an incident in the history of the British islands.

Dermod Mac Morough (or Mac Murchad), prince of Leinster, was attached to Dervorghal, wife of Tiernan O’Ruark, another Irish chief, who held the county of Leitrim, with some adjacent districts,—a lady of great beauty, but small virtue, who took advantage of her husband’s being driven into hiding by O’Connor, who was then predominant in Ireland, to elope with her lover. “An outrage of this kind was not always regarded with abhorrence by the Irish; they considered it rather as an act of pardonable gallantry, or such an offence as a reasonable pecuniary compensation might atone for. But the sullen and haughty prince, provoked more by the insolence and treachery of his ravisher than the infidelity of his wife, conceived the most determined animosity against Dermod. He practised secretly with O’Connor, promised the most inviolable attachment to his interest, and prevailed on him, not only to reinstate him in his possessions, but to revenge the insult of Mac Morough, whom he represented, and justly, as a faithless vassal, really devoted to the service of his rival. The King of Connaught led his forces into Leinster, rescued Dervorghal from her paramour, and restored her to her friends; with whom she lived, if not in a state of reconciliation with her husband, at least in that opulence and splendour which enabled her to atone for the crime of infidelity, by the usual method of magnificent donations to the church.”[27] This domestic squabble led to more than usually important results, for the expelled Dermod applied to our Henry II. for assistance, and the conquest of Ireland followed.

The ambition of Agamemnon, however, is regarded by Thucydides as the cause of the war; the abduction of Helen served only as the pretext. “To me it seemeth that Agamemnon got together that fleet, not so much for that he had with him the suitors of Helena, bound thereto by oath to Tyndareus, as for that he exceeded the rest in power. For Atreus, after that Eurystheus was slain by the Heraclidæ, obtained the kingdom of Mycenæ, and whatever else had been under him, for himself. To which greatness Agamemnon succeeding; and also far excelling the rest in shipping, took that war in hand, as I conceive it, and assembled the said forces, not so much on favour as by fear. For it is clear, that he himself both conferred most ships to that action, and that some also he lent to the Arcadians. And this is likewise confirmed by Homer (if any think his testimony sufficient), who, at the delivery of the sceptre unto him, calleth him, ‘Of many isles, and of all Argos king.’”[28] Argos here signifies the whole peninsula, called afterwards Peloponnesus. It is plain, however, from Homer, that the sovereignty here ascribed to him was of a most uncertain and insecure tenure; that his subordinate princes were in fact independent within their own dominions, and were too high spirited and powerful to be maltreated with impunity. Altogether, without the elaborate machinery of the feudal system, the power and influence of Agamemnon seem to have resembled that possessed by the kings of France, and emperors of Germany, over those great vassals who held whole provinces, and singly or united often proved an overmatch for their sovereign.

Here ends the Mythic age. We shall pass over the next three, or according to most chronologers the next five centuries, which are but partially filled up by notices of events, such as the return of the Heraclidæ, the gradual subversion of monarchy throughout Greece, and the great emigrations which peopled the Asiatic coast with a Hellenic race. About the sixth century b.c. we begin to reap the benefit of contemporary authorities; and thenceforward history, if not free from an admixture of fiction, at least runs with a copious and uninterrupted stream.

[ill039]

CHAPTER II.

Aristomenes.[29]—Hereward le Wake.—Wallace.

Sparta had not long acquired strength under the institutions of Lycurgus, before she discovered that thirst of dominion which distinguished her after–history. The neighbouring state of Messenia was the first to suffer. As usual, it is hard to say which party gave the first provocation; but if the Lacedæmonians were ever in the right, they lost that advantage when, in time of peace, with studied secrecy they bound themselves never to return home until Messenia was conquered; and when, without the formality of a declaration of war, they stormed by night Ampheia, a frontier town, and put the unprepared inhabitants to the sword. Their enterprise succeeded better than its iniquity merited; for after a vigorous and protracted defence Messenia was subdued, and continued in servitude for forty years. At the end of that time a new race had grown up, ignorant of the evils of war, and too high–spirited to bear their degradation tamely. A gallant leader is seldom wanting to gallant men engaged in a good cause; and Aristomenes might serve as a type for all later heroes, whose exploits belong to the debateable ground which lies between truth and fiction. He was a young Messenian of the royal line, according to the report of his countrymen; but other Greeks, with a more unbounded admiration, related that the hero Pyrrhus,[30] son of Achilles, was his father. His valour, at least, did not disgrace his reputed parentage; and, though daring in extremity even to desperation, was not of that blind and foolish kind which hurries unprepared into action, and sacrifices a good cause to the vanity and temerity of its supporters. Before taking the field, he secured the co–operation of Argos and Arcadia, to support and strengthen the eager spirit of his countrymen, and then, with a force entirely Messenian, attacked the Lacedæmonians at a place called Deræ. The event was doubtful; but that a conquered people should meet its masters in battle, and part from them on equal terms, was in itself equivalent to a victory. Aristomenes is said to have performed deeds beyond human prowess, and was rewarded by his grateful countrymen with a summons to the vacant throne. He declined the dignity, but accepted of the power under the title of commander–in–chief.

His next exploit was of a singular and romantic cast, such as would befit a knight of the court of Arthur, or Charlemagne, or the less fabulous, but scarce less romantic era of Froissart, better than it assorts with modern notions of a general’s or a sovereign’s duties. Considering it important to alarm the Spartans, and impress them with a formidable idea of his personal qualities, he traversed Laconia, and entered Sparta by night, which, in obedience to Lycurgus’ precepts, was unwalled and unguarded, to suspend from the temple of Pallas a shield, inscribed “Aristomenes from the Spartan spoils dedicates this to the goddess.”[31] Violence was not offered, and his object, therefore, must have been to win her favour, or at least to alarm the Spartans, lest their protecting deity should be wiled away. It is to be wished that we knew the result of this exploit, of which, unfortunately, no account remains. The year after the battle at Deræ, he again led his countrymen, supported by their allies, into battle, at a place called the Boar’s Tomb; and if upon this occasion fortune favoured the rightful cause, it was again mainly owing to his personal exertions. Supported by a chosen band of eighty men, who gloried in the privilege of risking their lives by the side of Aristomenes, he attacked and broke in detail the choice infantry of Sparta, committing to others the task of routing a disordered enemy, himself ever present where they showed the firmest front; till the Lacedæmonians forgot the precepts of their lawgiver in a hasty flight. Their disorder was complete, but the pursuit was early stopped, either by the prudence of Aristomenes, or the promptitude with which the Spartans availed themselves of local advantages. The latter is probably the real meaning of the following legend. There lay a wild pear–tree in the track of the retreating army; Theoclus, the Messenian seer, warned Aristomenes not to urge the pursuit beyond this tree, for that Castor and Pollux, the tutelary deities of Lacedæmon, were perched upon it. But Aristomenes thought as little of his friend’s advice, as Hector of Polydamas’s warning not to attack the Grecian camp, and was still hard pressing upon the enemy, when suddenly his shield disappeared. The loss of this weapon was esteemed disgraceful, and therefore we can scarcely wonder that even Aristomenes, whose character stood above detraction, should have lost time in a fruitless search, which, if improved to the full, might have broken for ever the power of his country’s oppressor. So great was the loss and dismay of Sparta, that the war was kept alive with difficulty, and that only through the influence acquired by Tyrtæus, who devoted his poetical talents to recruiting the courage and exasperating the hatred of the Lacedæmonians.[32]

The history of this man is somewhat singular. At the beginning of the war, the Lacedæmonians had been directed by the Delphic oracle to send to Athens for an adviser: they did so, and the city, unwilling either to aid in the aggrandizement of a rival, or to disobey the god, thought to extricate itself from the dilemma by making choice of one Tyrtæus, an obscure schoolmaster, halt of one leg, and esteemed to be of mean ability. From the event, a Grecian would have argued in support of the favourite doctrine, that the decrees of fate were inevitable; for to the unknown talents of one so lightly valued did Sparta, upon this and other occasions, owe the favourable issue of the war.

But the reader may be curious to know the fate of Aristomenes’ shield. Applying at Delphi, he was informed that he would find it in the cave of Trophonius,[33] at Lebadeia, in Bœotia, where he afterwards dedicated it, “and I myself have seen it there,”[34] adds Pausanias, lest any doubt should attach to a story which seems to border somewhat on the marvellous. How it came there, we are left to conjecture: and in these days of scepticism and research, may well envy the historian whose readers’ incredulity was so easily overcome. But, with one or two brilliant exceptions, it was sufficient for the Greeks that a story passed current; they cared little to investigate probabilities, or enter upon long and intricate inquiries, which in modern times have been so successfully employed in disentangling the mingled web of truth and fiction. It is curious to mark the importance attached to this miraculous loss. Aristomenes thought it of sufficient consequence to render necessary an immediate journey to Delphi; for we find that, returning from Lebadeia, he renewed the war with his recovered shield, which therefore must have been dedicated at a later period. At first he confined himself to predatory incursions. Returning from “driving a creagh,” in Laconia, he was attacked and wounded, but repelled the assailants; and, on his recovery, projected an attack upon Sparta, which, under such a leader, might have been fatal to an unfortified and unwatched city; but was deterred a second time by the interposition of Castor and Pollux. Turning aside, therefore, to Carya, he carried off a band of Spartan maidens while engaged in a religious ceremony; and on this occasion he showed that a life of warfare had not deadened the kindlier feelings of his heart, by protecting them from the drunken intemperance of his soldiers, even to the death of some who persisted in their disobedience. The captives, according to the custom of the age, were released upon ransom.

Another adventure terminated less happily, in which he attacked a quantity of matrons employed in celebrating the rites of Ceres, with similar views, but with a very different result. Armed only with spits and the implements of sacrifice, they showed the value of their Spartan breeding, animated by religious enthusiasm, in the entire defeat of the marauding party. Aristomenes, beaten down with their torches, was taken prisoner. This might have been an awkward and ill–sounding termination to a life of lofty adventure: many a hero has fallen victim to female wiles; but to be overcome and captured in open war by women armed with spits and staves, is an event not to be matched since the days of the Amazons, either in history or romance. The usual course of events, indeed, was inverted; for love was his deliverer from the dangers in which valour had involved him. Archidamia, the priestess of the goddess, who had been previously enamoured of him, forgot her patriotism, and set him free.

The Arcadians were zealous in the Messenian cause. Unhappily their prince, Aristocrates, proved treacherous, and took bribes from Sparta to betray his trust. “For the Lacedæmonians gave the first example of setting warlike prowess up to sale: prior to the transgression of Lacedæmon, and the treason of Aristocrates, combatants referred their cause to the arbitration of valour, and the fortune which Providence should allot to them. So also did they bribe the Athenian generals at Ægos–Potami:[35] but in the end the poisoned shaft recoiled upon themselves. It was through Persian gold, distributed at Corinth, Argos, Athens, Thebes, that the victorious career of Lacedæmon was stopped at its height, when, the Athenian fleet being destroyed, and a large part of Asia delivered, Agesilaus was compelled by the disturbances of Greece to lead home his victorious army. Thus did the gods turn to their own ruin the fraud which the Lacedæmonians had devised.”[36] Aristocrates kept his own counsel, until the eve of the battle of Megaletaphrus (the great ditch), and then disseminated an opinion among his countrymen that their position was bad, and offered no means of retreat if they were worsted; and, moreover, that the omens were unfavourable: finally, he advised all to betake themselves to flight, so soon as he should give the word. The Arcadians were steady friends to the Messenians, yet, strange to say, they became the abettors of their prince’s baseness, without sharing his reward. They formed the centre and left wing, and the consternation of the Messenians may be imagined, when two–thirds of their army at once deserted them. To complete his treachery, Aristocrates led the flying troops through the Messenians, and threw them into irretrievable confusion; forgetful of the battle, they betook themselves to expostulation and upbraiding of their treacherous allies; and the Lacedæmonians readily surrounded and defeated them with such slaughter, that from the hope of becoming lords of their former masters, they were reduced even to despair of safety. Aristomenes collected from all quarters the scattered remnant of his countrymen, into one new city which he founded on Mount Eira.

By this step they gave up all their territory, except a strip along the coast held by the Pylians and Methonæans. But they were not men to starve peaceably in the neighbourhood of full garners,

For why, the good old rule
Contented them; the simple plan
That they should take, who have the power,
And they should keep, who can:

and in truth circumstances fully justified them in adopting this simple and compendious rule of action, which they followed with no ordinary success, carrying off corn, wine, and cattle, equally from their own country, now occupied by Lacedæmonians, and from Laconia; and providing for their other wants with the ransoms paid for men and moveables captured in their predatory excursions. At last the Spartans found out that it was worse than lost labour to sow, where an enemy was to reap; and forbade the cultivation, not only of Messenia, but even of the borders of Laconia. So great a sacrifice bespeaks the formidable nature of the enemy, and produced disturbances, in appeasing which the value of Tyrtæus was again displayed. The measure was highly politic, for it compelled the Messenians to gain their livelihood by long and dangerous excursions. In one of these Aristomenes, being surprised by a superior force, was stunned by a blow, and taken, with fifty of his comrades. Cruelty is almost the necessary consequence of injustice; and though the Messenians, and especially Aristomenes, seem always to have treated their prisoners with humanity, it was resolved to insure future quiet by sacrificing a man whose only crime was perseverance in his country’s cause. The Spartans executed criminals by throwing them into a deep pit, called Ceada: into this Aristomenes and his companions were precipitated. All, except the hero, were killed by the fall, and he, reserved apparently for a more dreadful fate, retired to the extremity of the cavern, and for three days sat, his head wrapped in his cloak, in patient expectation of a lingering and painful death. At the end of that time he heard a slight noise, and raising his head (his eyes by this time had become accustomed to the gloom) perceived a fox gnawing the dead bodies. It might have occurred to a less ready wit, that where there is an entrance there may also be a way out; he caught the fox, and allowing it to follow its own path without suffering it to escape, was led along a dark passage, terminating in a crevice just large enough to admit the animal, through which a glimmering of light appeared. Dismissing his guide uninjured, he enlarged the opening with his hands, and against hope even, as well as probability, stood once more free to vindicate his country. It was of course supposed that a special providence, on this as on other occasions, guarded his safety; and many, to magnify the wonder, asserted that an eagle interposed itself in the fall, and bore him down secure from all harm.

The whole event was considered marvellous: first, such was his lofty spirit, and renown in arms, that none believed Aristomenes would be taken alive; but his return from the bowels of the earth was still more amazing, and was held to be a manifest interposition of the Deity. The Lacedæmonians, indeed, refused to believe it, until the total destruction of a body of Corinthians marching to assist in the siege of Eira, “convinced them that Aristomenes, and no other of the Messenians, had done this.”

After this occurrence he performed a second time a rite peculiar to the Messenians, called Hecatomphonia; a sacrifice offered to the Ithomæan[37] Jupiter, by such as had slain a hundred men in battle. He had celebrated it for the first time after the battle at the Boar’s Tomb; the slaughter of the Corinthians gave him a second opportunity; and he is said to have offered it yet a third time. The Lacedæmonians now concluded a truce for forty days, that they might go home, to celebrate one of their great annual festivals. Aristomenes wandering abroad without suspicion during its continuance, was seized by seven Cretan bowmen, who, while the Spartans were feasting, amused themselves by traversing the country. Two of them set off to bear the news to Sparta: the others carried him to a neighbouring village, in which a girl dwelt, who, in a dream in the preceding night, had seen a lion brought thither in bonds, and deprived of claws, by wolves. She loosed it, the claws returned, and it destroyed its captors. When Aristomenes was brought in, and she heard his name, the interpretation of the dream flashed across her mind. She intoxicated the soldiers, and set him free; the treacherous Cretans fell an easy prey. In recompence for his life, he gave his preserver in marriage to his son Gorgus.

Such was the fortune of the war for ten years. After the destructive battle at Megaletaphrus, in the third year, when their cause was ruined by the defection of the Arcadians, Aristomenes and the seer Theoclus consulted the Delphic oracle concerning the fate of their country. The answer ran thus—

When the he–goat shall bend to drink where dimpling Neda flows,

Messene’s fate draws nigh; no more can I avert her woes.

In the eleventh year of the siege of Eira, the fourteenth of the war, Theoclus, while walking along the bank of the river Neda, observed a wild fig–tree, which in the Messenian tongue was called by the same word which signifies a he–goat, that had grown slanting out of the bank, and then just swept the water with its branches. He brought Aristomenes to the place, and they agreed that the prophecy had received its fulfilment, and the hope of the nation was at an end. There were certain objects preserved in secret, and invested with peculiar sanctity, such as the Palladium enjoyed in Troy. If these were lost, the fortune of Messenia sunk with them for ever; if not, ancient oracles foretold that the Messenians should again enjoy their own. Believing that the fated time had arrived, Aristomenes buried secretly the mystic treasure in the wildest and most desolate part of Mount Ithome; in the persuasion that the deities, who had till then supported them in a righteous struggle, would still watch over the mysterious pledge of their safety.[38]

Pausanias seems to take a malicious pleasure in observing that Eira, no less than Troy, owed its ruin to a woman. A herdsman, belonging to Emperamus, a Spartan of distinction, had fled from his master, and lived near the river Neda. He gained the affections of a Messenian woman, who dwelt without the walls of Eira, and used to visit her when her husband was on guard. One night, the husband’s sudden return compelled him to conceal himself: a storm of extraordinary violence had caused the guard to disperse, trusting that the inclement season would keep the Lacedæmonians quiet, and aware that Aristomenes could not go the rounds, according to his custom, since he was lying ill of a recent wound. The herdsman listened to this account, and perceived that it was a favourable opportunity for making his peace, and even securing reward. He hastened to Emperamus, his master, who was in command at the camp, narrated what had happened, and conducted the army to the assault. The way was difficult, and the night terrible, but they surmounted these impediments, and entered the town before the alarm was given. Taken by surprise, its devoted inhabitants still acted up to the reputation they had so deservedly acquired. Aristomenes and Theoclus, aware that Messenia at length must fall, yet concealed the fulfilment of the oracle, and roused the courage of their comrades to desperation: even the women showed that they preferred death to captivity, and excited the men to higher daring by the participation of their danger. The night passed without advantage to either party, but at day–break the rain poured down in still greater fury, and drove in the faces of the Messenians; and the lightning flashing from the left, an evil omen, at once blinded them and depressed their spirits, while to the Spartans it came from the right, and was welcomed as the harbinger of success. The latter too were far superior in number; but since they could not avail themselves of this advantage in the narrow streets, their general sent back a part to the camp to rest and refresh themselves, with orders to return in the evening, to relieve that division which remained. Pressed thus continually by fresh foes, the wretched Messenians yet protracted the struggle. Three days and three nights they maintained an unceasing fight; at the end of these, watching, and cold, and wet, and thirst, and hunger, had exhausted their strength. Then Theoclus addressed Aristomenes: “Why do we still maintain this fruitless labour? The decree has gone forth that Messene must fall: that which we now see was foretold to us long since by the priestess of Apollo, and the fig–tree lately warned us that the time was at hand. God grants to me a common end with my country: it is your part to preserve the Messenians and yourself.” He rushed among the enemy, exclaiming, “Ye shall not rejoice in the possessions of the Messenians for ever!” and, sated with slaughter, fell surrounded by the victims of his despair. Aristomenes collected the survivors into a close column, in the centre of which he placed their wives and children, and stationing himself with his chosen band at their head, motioned with his spear to the enemy to allow them a free passage; which the Spartans granted, rather than exasperate their well–tried intrepidity to frenzy. They found a hospitable and friendly reception in Arcadia, the inhabitants of which supplied their wants, and would willingly have assigned to them a portion of their lands; but the ardent spirit of Aristomenes could not brook a quiet submission. Selecting five hundred men, the flower of his army, he asked if they were prepared to die with him in their country’s behalf; and having received their hearty concurrence, proposed a scheme for surprising Sparta, and holding it as a pledge for their own restoration. Three hundred Arcadians volunteered to join him; but their hopes were frustrated a second time by the traitor Aristocrates. On this occasion, however, he was detected, and his former villainy being at the same time revealed, the Arcadians, in just anger, stoned him to death. The Messenians, exhorted to join in the punishment, looked to Aristomenes, who sat weeping, and in imitation of their beloved leader, abstained from sharing in a merited revenge. Tender by nature must have been the heart of one, who, after having slain three hundred men with his own hand, could yet weep over the deserved punishment of an old companion in arms; and it is pleasing to contrast the staunch patriotism of the Messenians, still tempered by moderation and mercy, with the savage and wanton cruelties acted by the polished Greeks of later ages.

The Pylians and Methonæans, who had preserved their navy, invited their countrymen in Arcadia to join them, and seek a settlement in some foreign land. Aristomenes refused to accept the proffered command; he would never cease, he said, to war against the Lacedæmonians, and well knew that he should ever be the cause of some evil to them. His son Gorgus, and Manticlus, son of Theoclus, supplied his place. Ere they had resolved on their course, Anaxilas, prince of Rhegium, sent to invite their co–operation in a war against the Zanclæans, promising, in case of success, to assign to them that wealthy city. Zancle soon fell before their joint efforts. Anaxilas wished to slay the male citizens, and reduce their families to slavery; but the Messenians had learnt pity in the school of adversity, and deprecated being made the instruments of inflicting upon others the miseries which they themselves deplored. Interchanging oaths of fidelity with the inhabitants, they dwelt in union with them in the city, to which, in memory of their beloved country, they gave the name of Messene, which it bears to this day, under the slightly altered form of Messina.[39]

Shortly after their departure, Damagetus, king of Ialysus, in Rhodes, inquiring at Delphi where he should seek a wife, was directed to choose the daughter of the best of the Grecians. He hesitated not to fix on Aristomenes, and took his youngest and only unmarried child. The warrior passed with her into Rhodes, and died soon after, ungratified in his wish of striking another blow at Lacedæmon. He was honoured with a splendid monument, and worshipped as a hero in Rhodes, and by his grateful countrymen.

Such of the Messenians as remained on the land were consigned to the miserable class of Helots. But even in this degraded state they were still a source of trouble to their masters; and at last revolting, made so obstinate a defence, that they obtained permission to depart unarmed, and were settled by the Athenians at Naupactus, on the Corinthian gulf. Two centuries after their subjection, Epaminondas collected the scattered remnants of the people, and re–established them in possession of their country, in a new city, named Messene, built under his patronage, on Mount Ithome. Thus ancient oracles were fulfilled, the tutelary deities preserved their trust, and the dying prophecy of Theoclus was accomplished.

The annals of the Norman conquest of England introduce us to a fit companion for Aristomenes, in respect of similarity of fortunes, as well as character. Hereward le Wake, a youth of noble Saxon family, while yet a boy was distinguished for strength and turbulence of character: so rough was he in play, that his hand was against every one, and every one’s hand against him; and so impatient of superiority, that if the prize of wrestling, or their other games, was awarded to another, he would assert his own title by the cogent argument of an appeal to the sword. His father’s love of quiet seems to have been greater than his parental affection, for he took upon himself the task of ridding the neighbourhood of his troublesome son, and set forth so ably his violences against others, and certain boyish impertinences committed against himself, that he obtained from Edward the Confessor an order for his banishment. Hereward went to Northumberland, and thence travelling to Cornwall, Ireland, and Flanders, he distinguished himself everywhere so highly, for daring, skill in arms, and success in extricating himself from the greatest dangers, that it was a doubt whether his courage or his good fortune were the more admirable. His fame, won in many a conflict, and confirmed even by the report of his enemies, was not long in reaching England; and so entirely changed the temper of father, mother, relations, and friends, that the worthy abbot of Croyland, from whom our narrative is taken, can only account for the sudden conversion of so much ill will into such violent affection, by attributing it to the special interposition of Providence.

During his abode in Flanders, he received news of the Norman invasion, of his father’s death, and the bestowal of his inheritance upon a Norman, who insulted and oppressed his widowed mother. Hastening to avenge her, he quickly expelled the spoiler; and then remembering that he was no knight himself, though knights were now under his command, he received the order from his uncle the Abbot of Peterborough. For the English considered the investiture as a religious ceremony, and whoever underwent it confessed himself, received absolution, and spent the eve of his consecration in prayer in the church. In the morning, after hearing mass, he offered his sword upon the altar; and after the gospel had been read the priest blessed the weapon, and completed the ceremony by laying it upon his shoulder. But the Normans, who looked upon the order as exclusively military, held in abomination this method of receiving it.[40]

A body of noble Saxons, who, like Hereward, had been expelled from their inheritances, or driven by maltreatment into rebellion, occupied the Isle of Ely, a tract then environed by morasses, which now have almost disappeared, and admirably fitted to be a place of refuge from a more powerful but less active enemy. They chose Hereward for their leader, and he justified their preference and his own reputation by a series of exploits, which continued long after to be favourite subjects of the popular ballads; for the preservation of some of which posterity would have owned a much greater obligation to Ingulph, than for the minute details connected with the monastery of Croyland, which he has thought it more important to preserve.

Upon his uncle’s death the abbey of Peterborough was bestowed by the Conqueror upon a Norman, by name Thorold, to Hereward’s great displeasure. In conjunction with the Danes, who then infested the eastern coast, he resolved to disturb the temporal enjoyments at least of the intruder. Let the Monk of Peterborough tell his own melancholy history.

“Early in the morning of the above–mentioned day, came the aforesaid evil doers, with many ships;[41] but the monks and their men shut the gates, and bestirred themselves manfully in their defence from above, so that the battle waxed very sore at the gate called Bulehithe.[42] Then Hereward and his comrades, seeing they could by no means gain the mastery, and force entrance, set fire to the houses near the gate, and so made passage by burning; also, they consumed all the offices of the monks, save the church and one house. Yet the monks met them, and besought that they would not do this evil; but they listened not, and went armed into the church, and would have carried away the great crucifix, but they could not. Nevertheless they took from its head a golden crown set with jewels, and a stool, also made of pure gold and jewels, from under its feet; also two golden reliquaries, and nine made of silver, fashioned with gold and jewels, and twelve crosses, some made of gold, others of silver, gold, and jewels. Nor did this content them, but they went up into the tower, and took thence a great table made entirely of gold and gems and silver, which the monks had hidden there, which used to stand before the altar; and they took such a quantity of gold and silver in articles of all sorts, books, and ornaments, as can neither be told nor valued. All these were of the best quality, nor did the like of them remain in England. Yet they said that out of fealty to the church they did thus, and that the Danes would preserve those valuables for the use of the church, better than the Normans. And, indeed, Hereward himself was of a monastic order, and therefore they put some trust in him, and he afterwards made oath that he had done this from good motives, because he thought they should conquer King William, and themselves possess the land.

“So it came to pass that nothing that was taken away was ever restored, and the monastery, which had been so rich, was now reduced to poverty. And from that day nothing was ever added or restored to it, but its wealth continually diminished. Since Abbot Thorold himself not only added nothing, but dispersed its compact estates among his kinsmen and the knights that came with him.”[43]

The Abbot gave away sixty–two knights’ fees (feoda) upon tenure of military service. Not long after, being naturally anxious to dislodge so formidable an enemy, he summoned his friends and vassals to drive Hereward from the vicinity. Ivo Tailboys, a Norman baron, to whom the Conqueror had granted the district of Hoyland, or Holland, in Lincolnshire, still known by the latter name, entered the woods at the head of his troops: the Abbot, with other dignitaries, kept warily on the outside; but while Ivo entered upon the right, Hereward darted round upon the left, carried off the Abbot and his companions, and made them pay a ransom of three thousand marks. At length William in person brought a powerful army against him, beleaguered the island closely by land and water, and, at vast expense, proceeded to make causeways across the marshes, by which his position was defended. Ivo Tailboys was a great believer in witchcraft, and he prevailed upon the king to try its efficacy. As the causeway proceeded, therefore, a witch was kept in advance, in a wooden turret, to fulminate her incantations against the enemy: but the farce soon met with a tragical conclusion, for Hereward, watching his time when the soldiers and workmen had gone somewhat forward, made a circuit, and by setting fire to the reeds upon their flank, involved soldiers, witch, and works, in one common ruin. But the odds were overwhelming, and at last the Saxons were compelled to submit. The other chiefs, including some of the most noble of the land, surrendered to the conqueror’s mercy, and suffered death, mutilation, or fine, according to the sense entertained by him of their guilt. Hereward alone, by his superior gallantry and conduct, provided for the escape of his followers and himself, and was ultimately rewarded for his valour and perseverance, by being admitted to favour, and reinstated in his paternal estates. He finished his days in peace, and was buried in Croyland Abbey.

But British history offers another character to our notice, who bears perhaps a nearer personal resemblance to Aristomenes, although both his own fate and the issue of the struggle in which he engaged were different,—Wallace, the earliest, the stoutest, and the most fondly remembered champion of Scottish independence: whose name has been preserved and magnified in the recollection of his countrymen, with an affection not inferior to that which led the Messenians to pay divine honours to their departed hero. The fame of both rests chiefly upon tradition, for the earliest Scottish author who gives the history of Wallace wrote more than a century after his death, and the notices of his exploits in the English chroniclers are meagre and unsatisfactory. It is impossible therefore accurately to depict his character, or to draw the line minutely between truth and fiction. We see a form of commanding and colossal proportions, but we see it dimly, and the features must be filled up from our own imaginations: but we may at least trace indomitable courage, constancy, and patriotism; and if these lofty qualities were sometimes sullied by ferocity, yet, in justification of the sympathy and interest which his career excites, we may plead not only the character of the age, and the sufferings endured by Scotland under the English yoke, but the exacerbation of temper which must necessarily arise from a life of constant hardship and danger. Hunted continually from morass to forest, denied the enjoyment of domestic happiness, dependent upon his own right hand for the security which was to be found only in the death of his pursuers, it is rather matter for regret, than for stern censure, if in the hour of victory the call of mercy was unheeded. And in further extenuation we may add, that to control the excesses of his followers does not seem always to have been in the power even when it was in the wish of their chief; and that it is reasonable and consistent with the bitter spirit of national enmity which long prevailed, to conjecture that the blind minstrel, who is his principal biographer, consulted the passions and prejudices of his hearers no less by exaggerating the deeds of vengeance acted by his hero, than his hair–breadth escapes, and almost superhuman might.

It is amusing to note how party spirit has biassed the view taken of his origin and motives. The English writers speak of him slightingly, without notice of the extraordinary qualities ascribed to him, as a common robber, who having by degrees collected round him a large band of desperate men, was emboldened to attack and plunder the suite of Ormesby, chief justiciary of Scotland. Compare this with the account given by Bower,[44] in whose eyes, it is but fair to say, the having fought stoutly in defence of Scotland was cloak enough to cover a multitude of offences.

“In the same year (1297) that famous warrior William Wallace, the hammer and the scourge of the English, son of a noble knight of the same name, lifted up his head; and when he saw the affliction of his nation, and the goods of the Scots delivered into the hands of their enemies, his heart pined and was sore afflicted. For he was tall of stature, gigantic in body, of calm aspect, and cheerful countenance, broad shouldered, big boned, proportionately corpulent, pleasant, yet stern to behold, thick loined, powerful of limb, a most stout champion, and very strong, and well knit in all his joints. Moreover the Most High had so distinguished him by a certain prepossessing mirthfulness, had so graced with some heavenly gift both his deeds and words, that by his mere aspect he disposed the hearts of all true Scots to love him. And no wonder, for he was most generous, in judgment most just, in ministering comfort most patient, in council most wise, in sufferance most enduring, in speech most eloquent: above all things hostile to lies and falsehood, and abhorrent of treachery: wherefore the Lord was with him, through whom he was in all things prosperous, venerating the church, revering churchmen, supporting the poor and widowed, cherishing orphans, raising the oppressed, lying in wait for thieves and robbers, and without reward inflicting deserved punishment upon them.”

The following extract comprises such particulars of his early career as seem entitled to historical credit. “At this time (1297), and out of this middle class of the lesser barons, arose an extraordinary individual, who was at first driven into the field by intolerable injury and despair, and who in a short period of time, in the reconquest of his native country, developed a character which may without exaggeration be termed heroic. This was William Wallace, or Walays, the second son of Sir Malcolm Wallace, of Ellersley, near Paisley, a simple knight, whose family was ancient, but neither rich nor noble. In those days bodily strength and knightly prowess were of the highest consequence in commanding respect and ensuring success. Wallace had an iron frame. His make, as he grew up to manhood, approached almost to the gigantic, and his personal strength was superior to the common run of even the strongest men. His passions were hasty and violent; a strong hatred to the English, who now insolently lorded it over Scotland, began to show itself at a very early period of his life; and this aversion was fostered in the youth by an uncle, a priest, who, deploring the calamities of his country, was never weary of extolling the sweets of liberty and the miseries of dependence.

“The intrepid temper of Wallace appears first to have shown itself in a quarrel with one of the English officers, who insulted him. Provoked by his taunts, Wallace, reckless of the consequences, stabbed him with his dagger, and slew him on the spot. The consequence of this was to him the same as to many others, who at this time preferred a life of dangerous freedom to the indulgence and security of submission. He was proclaimed a traitor, banished his home, and driven to seek his safety in the wilds and fastnesses of his country. It was here that he collected by degrees a little band, composed at first of a few brave men of desperate fortunes who had forsworn their vassalage to their lords, and refused submission to Edward, and who at first carried on that predatory warfare against the English, to which they were impelled as well by the desire of plunder, and the necessity of subsistence, as by the love of liberty. These men chose Wallace for their chief. Superior rank, for as yet none of the nobility or barons had joined them, his uncommon courage and personal strength, and his unconquerable thirst of vengeance against the English, naturally influenced their choice, and the result proved how well it had fallen. His plans were laid with so much judgment, that in his first attacks against straggling parties of the English, he was generally successful; and if surprised by unexpected numbers, his superior strength and bravery, and the noble ardour with which he inspired his followers, enabled them to overpower every effort which was made against them.

“To him these early and desultory excursions against the enemy were highly useful; as he became acquainted with the strongest passes of his country, and acquired habits of command over men of fierce and turbulent spirits. To them the advantage was reciprocal, for they began gradually to feel an undoubting confidence in their leader; they were accustomed to rapid marches, to endure fatigue and privation, to be on their guard against surprise, to feel the effects of discipline and obedience, and by the successes which these ensured, to regard with contempt the nation by whom they had allowed themselves to be overcome.

“The consequences of these partial advantages over the enemy were soon seen. At first few had dared to unite themselves to so desperate a band. But confidence came with success, and numbers flocked to the standard of revolt. The continued oppressions of the English, the desire of revenge, and even the romantic and perilous nature of the undertaking recruited the ranks of Wallace, and he was soon at the head of a great body of Scottish exiles.”[45]

About this time he was joined by Sir William Douglas at the head of all his vassals. A series of brilliant successes followed the union of their little armies: and such was the effect produced on the public mind, that when their united strength broke in upon the West of Scotland, they were joined by some of the most powerful of the Scottish nobles, among whom we find the Steward of Scotland, Sir Andrew Moray of Bothwell, his brother, and Wishart, Bishop of Glasgow.

Such is the outset of Wallace’s career, so far as it is matter of authentic history. His biographer, Blind Harry, carries him through a great number of adventures before this period; but they possess so little of interest or poetical merit, and are written in such antiquated language, that the reader would probably derive little pleasure from them. They consist chiefly of rencontres with the English soldiery; enterprising attacks upon the strongholds scattered throughout Scotland, and the various events of a desultory and almost predatory warfare, in all which his knightly prowess and sagacity are represented as compensating for inferiority in numbers, and as extricating his followers and himself even in the extremity of danger. The following specimens will probably be sufficient.

The first relates to the surprisal of Dunbarton Castle. Wallace, entering the town, found the captain and part of his garrison drinking, and bragging of what they would do if the rebel leader and his men were within reach.

When Wallace heard the Southron made sic din,
He garred all bide, and him alane went in;
The lave[46] remained, to hear of their tithans,[47]
He saluit them with sturdy countenance.
“Fellows,” he said, “sen I come last fra hame
In travail I was our land, and uncouth fame.
Fra south Ireland I come in this countree,
The new conquest of Scotland for to see.
Part of your drink, or some good would I have.”
The captain then a shrewish answer him gave;
“Thou seemest a Scot unlikely, us to spy;
Thou may be ane of Wallace company.
Contrar our king he is risen again,
The land of Fife he has rademyt in playne.[48]
Thou sall here bide, while we wit how it be;
Be thou of his, thou sall be hanged on high.”
Wallace then thought it was no time to stand,
His noble sword he grippit soon in hand;
Athwart his face drew that captain in tene,[49]
Strake all away that stood abowne his eyne;
Ane othir braithly in the breast he bare,
Baith brawn and bayn,[50] the burly blade through share;
The lave rushed up to Wallace in great ire;
The third he felled full fiercely in the fire.
Stenyn of Ireland and Kerle, in that thrang,
Kepyt na cherge, but entred them amang;
And othir more that to the door can press:
While they saw him, there could no man them cess,[51]
The Southron men full soon were brought to dead.

The following extract is of a more romantic character. Wallace, being closely pursued by the English, had, in a mingled fit of anger and suspicion, struck off the head of one of his followers, by name Fawdoun. At night, when he and his men had taken refuge in a tower, they heard a horn blown at hand. Two of them went out to see what the cause might be; they did not return, and the horn was again heard louder than before. Two more were sent, and so, till Wallace was left alone.

When he alane Wallace was leavit there,
The awfull blast abounded mickle mair.
Then trowed he they had his lodging seen;
His sword he drew, of noble metal keen,
Syne[52] forth he went whereat he heard the horn.
Without the door Fawdoun was them beforn,
As till his sight, his awn head in his hand.
A cross he made, when he saw him so stand.
At Wallace in the head he swaket[53] there;
And he in haste soon hynt[54] it by the hair,
Syne out again at him he couth[55] it cast;
Intil his heart he greatly was aghast.
Right well he trowed that was no sprite of man,
It was some devil, that sic malice began.
He wist no waill[56] there longer for to byde.
Up through the hall thus wight Wallace can glide,
Till a close stair: the boards rave in twain.
Fifteen foot large he lap out of that inn.[57]
Up the water suddenly he couth fare;
Again he blent[58] what perance he saw there.
Him thought he saw Fawdoun, that hugly sir;
That haill hall he had set in a fire;
A great rafter he had intill his hand.
Wallace as then no longer would he stand.
Of his gude men full great merveill had he,
How they were lost through his fell fantasy.

In the spring of 1297 his career of victory was checked at Irvine, by the dissensions and desertion of his army; but the cloud soon passed away, for in the autumn we find him engaged in the siege of Dundee, from which he was recalled by the approach of the English, under the command of Warenne, Earl of Surrey. Wallace determined to await the enemy on the banks of the Forth, near Stirling, where the river could be crossed only by a narrow and inconvenient bridge, that scarce admitted the passage of two horsemen together. The Scottish army consisted of forty thousand foot, and one hundred and eighty horse; the English, of fifty thousand foot, and one thousand horse.

Surrey was probably aware of the strong position occupied by the Scots, and the danger of passing the bridge in face of the enemy, for he despatched two friars to propose terms to Wallace. “That robber,” says Hemingford, “replied, ‘Tell your fellows, that we come not hither for the benefit of peace, but are prepared for battle, to avenge and to free our kingdom. Let them, therefore, come up when they will, and they shall find us ready to meet them beard to beard.’ And when these tidings came to our men, they that were hot–headed said, ‘Let us go up against them, for these are but threats.’ But the wiser part added, ‘We may not yet advance, until we have well reflected what counsel to pursue.’ Then said that stout knight, Sir Richard Lundy, who had surrendered to us at Irvine,[59] ‘My lords, if it shall be that we ascend the bridge, we are dead men. For we can only pass by two and two, and the enemy are on our flank, and when they please, will form in line and charge us. But not far off there is a ford where sixty men can cross at once. Now then give me five hundred horse and a small body of foot; and we will make a circuit in the enemy’s rear and overthrow him: and meanwhile you, Lord Earl, and your company will pass the bridge in safety.’ But they would not abide by his good counsel, saying that it was unsafe to separate. So being divided in opinion, some cried out to pass the bridge, others the contrary. Among whom Cressingham, the king’s treasurer, a proud man and a child of perdition, said, ‘It is not well, my Lord Earl, to put off this matter farther, and to spend the king’s money in vain. Rather let us march up, and do our devoir as we are bound.’ The earl, therefore, being moved by his words, gave orders that they should pass the bridge. A strange thing was it, and very direful in its issue, that so many, and such wise men, who knew the enemy to be at hand, should venture on a narrow bridge, which two horsemen could hardly pass abreast. So that, as some said, who were in that battle, if they had filed over without bar or hindrance from break of day till eleven o’clock, still a large part of the rear would have remained behind. Neither was there a fitter place in all Scotland to deliver over the English to the Scots, or the many into the hands of the few. The banners of the king and earl passed over, and among the first that most valiant knight, Sir Marmaduke Twenge. And when the enemy saw that as many as they thought to overthrow had crossed, they ran down the hill, and blocked up the bridge end with their spearmen; so that from thenceforth there was neither passage nor return, but in the attempt many were cast over the bridge and drowned. As the Scots came down from the mountain, Sir Marmaduke said, ‘Is it not time, my brethren, to charge them?’ And they assented, and spurred their horses: and in the shock some of the Scots horsemen fell, and the others, to a man, ran away. As our men pursued the fugitives, one said to Sir Marmaduke, ‘Sir, we are betrayed, for our comrades do not follow, and the banners of the king and earl are not to be seen.’ Then looking back, they saw that many of our men, and among them the standard–bearers, had fallen, and said, ‘Our way to the bridge is cut off, and we are barred from our friends: it is better to make trial of the water, if it be that we may pass it, than to plunge into the columns of the enemy, and fall to no purpose. It is difficult, yea, impossible, for us to pass through the midst of the Scots.’ Then replied that valiant knight, Sir Marmaduke, ‘Surely, my dear friends, it shall never be said of me, that I drowned myself for nothing. Do not ye so either, but follow me, and I will clear a passage through them even to the bridge.’ Then spurring his charger, he plunged among the enemy, and dealing blows on either side, passed unhurt through the throng, and laid open a wide path for his followers. For he was tall, and stout of body. And as he fought thus valiantly, his nephew, who was wounded, his horse being slain, shouted after him, ‘Sir, save me.’ He replied, ‘Get up behind me.’—‘I cannot,’ he answered, ‘for my strength is gone.’ Presently his comrade, an esquire of the same Sir Marmaduke, came up, and descending from his horse, he placed the young man on it, and said to his master, ‘Sir, go where you will, I follow;’ and he followed him to the bridge, so that both were preserved. All who remained, to the number of one hundred horsemen, and five thousand foot, perished, except a few who swam the river. One knight, also, with much difficulty, passed the water upon his barded horse.”[60]

The Earl of Surrey quitted the field as soon as he was rejoined by Twenge, giving orders for the destruction of the bridge. The Scots, therefore, did not cross to pursue their success: but notwithstanding, quantities of plunder fell into their hands, and the decisive nature of the defeat is evident from the consequences which attended it. In the words of Knighton, “This awful beginning of hostilities roused the spirit of Scotland, and sunk the hearts of the English.” In a short time not a fortress of Scotland remained in Edward’s possession. The castles of Edinburgh and Roxburgh were dismantled, and Berwick, being abandoned by the English upon the advance of the Scots, was occupied by Wallace, who resolved on an immediate expedition into England, with the view of providing sustenance for his troops, and lightening the horrors of famine, which now fell severely upon Scotland.

“After that ill–omened beginning,” Hemingford continues, “the Scots were animated, and the hearts of the English troubled. Wallace overran and devastated the whole of Northumberland. In that time the praise of God ceased to be heard in all monasteries and churches from Newcastle–upon–Tyne to Carlisle. For all monks, canons, and other priests, with all the commons, fled before the face of the Scots.” Turning then westward, he passed Carlisle, which refused to surrender, ravaged Cumberland, and was advancing into Durham, when his progress was stopped by the winter’s setting in with unusual severity: a deliverance ascribed to the miraculous assistance of Cuthbert, the patron saint of the diocese. “Returning to Hexham, where stood a wealthy monastery, which the Scots had plundered on their advance, three canons of that house, who, having no fear of death, had just returned, fled into an oratory which they had rebuilt, that, if it were the Divine will, they might there be offered as a sacrifice of sweet savour. Presently the spearmen came in and shook their lances over them, saying, ‘Show us the treasures of your church, or ye shall instantly die.’ One of them replied, ‘It is not long since you and your people carried off our property, as if it had been your own, and you know where you have placed it. Since then we have sought out a few things, as you now see.’ Meanwhile Wallace appeared and rebuked his men, and bid them give way, and asked one of the monks to celebrate mass, which was done. And at the moment of elevating the host, Wallace went forth to lay aside his armour; and then, when the priest was about to take the holy sacrament, the Scots gathered round him, to snatch away the cup. And after Wallace had washed his hands, and returned from the sacristy to the altar, he found the chalice and the napkins, and other ornaments of the altar, carried off; even the book in which the mass had been begun, was gone. And while the priest was hesitating what he should do, Wallace returned, and seeing what had passed, he gave order that those sacrilegious men should be sought out, and put to death. But they were not found, inasmuch as they were not sought for in earnest. And he said to the canons, ‘Go not away from me, but keep near me, as you value your safety. For this people is ill–disposed, and may neither be excused nor punished.’”[61]

Soon after his return from this expedition, he was elected governor of Scotland, and his measures in this high office appear to have been judicious and temperate. But the haughty barons could not bear the superiority of one whose only claim was in his merit, and thus division was sown in the Scottish councils at the time when unanimity was more than ever needed. In the summer of 1298 Edward himself invaded Scotland at the head of a powerful army. The plan adopted by Wallace upon this occasion was the same as that which was afterwards so successfully executed by Bruce. He avoided a general battle, which with an army far inferior to the English must have been fought to a disadvantage,—he fell back slowly before the enemy, leaving some garrisons in the most important castles, driving off all supplies, wasting the country through which the English were to march, and waiting till the scarcity of provisions compelled them to retreat, and gave him a favourable opportunity of breaking down upon them with full effect.[62]

They advanced unopposed, therefore, but found an inhospitable desert; and Edward, unable to replace his exhausted stores, was at length compelled to issue orders for a retreat to Edinburgh, hoping to meet his fleet at Leith, and then to recommence offensive warfare. At this critical juncture, when the military skill and wisdom of the dispositions made by Wallace became apparent, and when the moment to harass and destroy the invading army in its retreat had arrived, the treachery of her nobles again betrayed Scotland to the enemy. Two Scottish lords, Patrick, Earl of Dunbar, and the Earl of Angus, at day–break privately sought the quarters of the Bishop of Durham, and informed him that the Scots were encamped not far off in the forest of Falkirk. The Scottish earls, who dreaded the resentment of Edward on account of their late renunciation of allegiance, did not venture to seek the king in person. They sent their intelligence by a page, and added, that having heard of his projected retreat, it was the intention of Wallace to surprise him by a night attack. Edward, on hearing this welcome news, could not conceal his joy. “Thanks be to God,” he exclaimed, “who hitherto hath extricated me from every danger. They shall not need to follow me, since I shall forthwith go and meet them.”[63]

The consequence of this treachery was the fatal battle of Falkirk, in which the Scots were totally defeated, with vast slaughter, owing to the jealousy and dissensions of the nobility; and Wallace, finding his own exertions thwarted, resigned his office.

“Beside the watyre of Forth, he
Forsook Wardane ever to be.
For lever[64] he had to lyve simply.
Na under sic doubt in Seigniory.
Na the leal comonys of Scotland
He wold not had peryst under his hand.
“Of his good deeds, and manhood
Gret Gestis, I hard say, are made.
But sa mony I trow not
As he intil hys dayis wroucht.
Wha all his Dedis of price wald dyte
Him worthyd a gret Book to wryte
And all thae to wryte in here
I want both wyt and good laysere.”[65]

For several years after this, we do not meet with his name in the records of authentic history. The blind minstrel transports him to France during this period, where he goes through many adventures, and, among others, kills a lion in single combat. But we must hasten to the closing scene of his life. After Edward had overrun and subjected the whole country in 1303, all others who had distinguished themselves in the war were admitted to pardon upon terms more or less hard. “As for William Wallace,” says the deed, “it is covenanted, that if he thinks proper to surrender himself, it must be unconditionally to the will and mercy of our lord the king.” To accept such terms was to deliver himself over to death; he therefore betook himself to the woods and mountains, and lived upon plunder.

It is amusing to trace the effects of national partiality in the contradictory accounts of the Scottish and English historians. Bower tells us that Wallace’s friends endeavoured to induce him to submit, upon the same terms as themselves; and that Edward was so anxious upon this head, that he offered, not only personal security, but an earldom, with ample domains, to be selected by himself, either in Scotland or England, as the price of his allegiance. But Wallace answered, that if every other Scot should submit, still he and his companions would stand up for the freedom of the kingdom; and never, as they hoped for God’s favour, obey any one except their monarch or his deputy. Langtoft, on the other hand, says that the Scottish hero offered to surrender upon assurance of safety in life, limb, and estate; but Edward’s anger was so hot against him, that he burst into a fury at the bare proposition.

When they brought that tiding, Edward was full grim,

And betaught him the fende,[66] als his traytoure in lond.

And ever–ilkon his frende, that him susteyned, or fond.

Three hundred marke he hette unto his warisoun,[67]

That with him so met, or bring his hede to toun.

Now flies William Wallis, of pes nought he spedis,[68]

In mores and in mareis with robberie him fedis.

Ah Jhesu whan thou will, how rightwis is thy mede:

That of the wrong has gilt, the endyng may he drede.

William Waleis is nomen,[69] that maister was of theves.

Tiding to the kyng is comen, that robberie mischeves.[70]

Sir Jon of Menetest sewed William so nehi,[71]

He took him whan he wend lest,[72] on nyght his lemman by.

That was thought treson of Jak Short his man,

He was the encheson,[73] that Sir Jon so him nam.[74]

Jak’s brother had he slayn, the Waleis that is said,

The more Jak was fayn to do William that braid.[75]

Selcouthly[76] he endis, the man that is fals,

If he trest on his frends, they begile him als.

Begiled is William, taken is, and bondon.

To Inglond with him thei came, and led him to London.

The first dome he fanged,[77] for treson was he drawen.

For robberie was he hanged, and for he had men slawen,

And for he had brent abbeis, and men of religion,

Eft[78] from the galweis quick[79] thei let him doun,

And bouweld him all hote,[80] and brent them in the fire.

His hede than of smote, swilk[81] was William’s hire;

And for he had mayntend the werre at his myght,

On lordship lended thore[82] he had no right,

And stroied thore he knew, in fele stede sers.[83]

His body thei hewed on four quarters,

To hang in four tounes, to mene[84] of his maners,

In stede of Gonfaynounes[85] and of his baners.

At London is his heved, his quarters ere leved,[86] in Scotland spred,

To wirschip ther isles,[87] and lere of his wiles, how well that he sped.

It is not to drede, traytour sall spede,[88] als he is worthi,

His lif sall he tyne, and die thorgh pyne, withouten merci.

Thus may men here, a lad for to lere, to biggen in pays.[89]

It fallis in his eye, that hewes over high, with the Walays.

Langtoft’s Chronicle of Edw. I.

“The day after his arrival at London, he was brought on horseback to Westminster, the mayor, sheriffs, and aldermen, and many others, both on foot and horseback, accompanying him; and in the greate hall at Westminster, he being placed upon the south bench, crowned with laurel, for that he had said in times past, that he ought to bear a crowne in that Hall (as it was commonly reported), and being appeached for a traytor by Sir Peter Mallorie, the king’s justice, hee answered, that he never was traytor to the king of England, but for other things whereof he was accused, he confessed them, and was after headed and quartered.”[90]

His head was set up at London, his quarters were sent to Newcastle, Berwick, Perth, and Aberdeen. But Edward reaped no advantage from this act of cruelty and injustice, except the gratification of his implacable temper. If intimidation was his object, it failed, as was to be expected in the case of a high–spirited people: and the only effect of raising these ghastly trophies was to inspire a deeper hatred of the tyrant who commanded them, and of the treacherous minister of his revenge. The latter long continued to be an object of especial hatred to the Scottish nation; and is condemned to shame in its traditional literature under the fitting title of the “false Menteith.”

Here, it might be supposed, history must end, and the ultimate destiny of the oppressor and oppressed, the tyrant and his victim, remain a mystery until the time when all things shall be brought to light. But the patriotic chronicler before quoted, who probably could not bear that the last scene of his hero should be one of suffering and degradation, undertakes to enlighten our curiosity on this subject. We read in the continuation of Fordun by Bower, that, according to the testimony of many credible Englishmen, “an holy hermit, being rapt in the spirit, saw innumerable souls delivered from purgatory marshalling the way, while the spirit of Wallace was conducted to heaven by angels, in reward of his inflexible patriotism. To whom the proverb may be applied, ‘The memory of the just with praise, and the name of the wicked stinketh.’”

Soon after, he proceeds to illustrate the latter clause of the proverb. When Edward died upon his march to Scotland, an English knight, Bannister by name, upon the night of his decease, saw in a trance his lord the king, surrounded by a multitude of devils, who were mocking him with much laughter, and saying,

En rex Edwardus, debacchans ut leopardus!
Olim dum vixit populum Dei maleflixit.
Nobis viæ talis comes ibis, care sodalis,
Quo condemneris, ut dæmonibus socieris.
Te sequimur voto prorsus torpore remoto.[91]

Meanwhile they drove him on with whips and scorpions. “Let us sing,” they said, “the canticle of death, beseeming this wicked soul; because she is the daughter of death, and food of fire unquenchable; the friend of darkness, and enemy of light.” And then they repeated En rex, &c.

While thus tormented by the evil spirits, he turned, said the knight, his trembling and bloodless visage towards me, as if to implore the aid which I was used to minister to him. But when voice and sense both deserted me, he cast upon me such a dreadful look, that while I live and remember it I can never more be cheerful. With that, he was in a moment swallowed up into the infernal pit, exclaiming in a doleful voice,

Heu cur peccavi? fallor quia non bene cavi.
Heu cur peccavi? perit et nihil est quod amavi.
Heu cur peccavi? video, quia littus aravi,
Cum sudore gravi mihimet tormenta paravi.[92]

Bannister was so terrified by this vision, that he forsook the world and its vanities, and, for the improvement of his life and conversation, spent his latter days in solitude.[93]

Scotland did not long languish in want of a deliverer. The place of Wallace was quickly filled up by one scarce his inferior in knightly renown, or in the affections of his countrymen. Were it not for the length of this article, we should willingly narrate some of the exploits and hair–breadth escapes which procured for Robert Bruce, even among the English, the reputation of being the third best knight in Europe; but we must hasten to conclude with the panegyric of the affectionate Bower.

“There is no living man who is able to narrate the story of those complicated misfortunes which befell him in the commencement of this war; his frequent perils, his retreats, the care and weariness, the hunger and thirst, the watching and fasting, the cold and nakedness, to which he exposed his person, the exile into which he was driven, the snares and ambushes which he escaped, the seizure, imprisonment, execution, and utter destruction of his dearest friends and relatives. And if, in addition to these almost innumerable and untoward events, which he ever bore with a cheerful and unconquered spirit, any man should undertake to describe his individual conflicts, and personal successes, those courageous and single–handed combats in which, by the favour of God, and his own great strength and courage, he would often penetrate into the thickest of the enemy,—now becoming the assailant, and cutting down all who opposed him; at another time acting on the defensive, and evincing equal talents in escaping from what seemed inevitable death;—if any writer shall do this, he will prove, if I am not mistaken, that he had no equal in his own time, either in knightly prowess, or in strength and vigour of body.”[94]

CHAPTER III.

Treatment of Prisoners of War—Crœsus—Roman Triumphs—Sapor and Valerian—Imprisonment of Bajazet—His treatment of the Marshal Boucicaut and his Companions—Changes produced by the advance of Civilization—Effect of Feudal Institutions—Anecdote from Froissart—Conduct of the Black Prince towards the Constable Du Guesclin and the King of France.

The wealth of Crœsus is proverbial, and the vicissitudes of his fortune have been a favourite subject for moralists in all ages. In Mitford’s History of Greece, as well as in that published in the Library of Useful Knowledge, all notice of them is confined to the simple statement, that he was conquered by Cyrus. The circumstances of his treatment, however, as they are related by Herodotus, are curious; and we propose, therefore, to translate them literally from that author, leaving it to the reader’s discretion to reject whatever is evidently fabulous.

It is well known that he was induced to make war upon Cyrus by an ambiguous response of the Delphic oracle, which predicted to him, “that if he made war upon the Persians, he would destroy a great empire.” The oracle was a very safe one. Crœsus understood it, that the Persian empire would be destroyed; but the credit of the god was equally supported by the event which really took place, the defeat of Crœsus and the destruction of his kingdom. Upon his defeat he took refuge in Sardis, which was besieged and ultimately stormed. “So the Persians captured Sardis and took Crœsus alive, after he had reigned fourteen years; and led him before Cyrus, who caused a mighty funeral pile to be built, upon which he set Crœsus in fetters, and with him fourteen Lydian youths; whether it were in his mind to offer them to some deity as the first–fruits of his conquest, or with intention to perform some vow, or because he had heard of Crœsus’s piety and therefore set him upon the pile, that he might know whether any god would deliver him from being burnt alive. Howbeit, he did so: but while Crœsus stood upon the pile, it struck him, even in this extremity of evil, that Solon was inspired when he said that no man ought to be called happy while he was yet alive.[95] And when this thought occurred to him, after being long silent, he thrice repeated with groans the name of Solon. Cyrus heard him, and bade the interpreters ask who this Solon, whom he invoked, might be; and they drew near, and did so. But Crœsus spoke not for some time, and replied at length, when he was compelled, ‘One whom I would rather than much wealth, were introduced to the conversation of all monarchs.’ But as he spoke unintelligibly to them, they again asked what he meant; and when they became urgent and troublesome, he related at length how Solon, an Athenian, came to him, and having beheld all his treasures, set them at nought, having spoken to such purpose, that all things had happened according to his words, which yet bore no especial reference to himself more than to the rest of mankind, particularly to those who trusted in their own good fortune. So by the time Crœsus had given this account, the pile being lighted, the outside of it was in flames. And when Cyrus heard from the interpreters what Crœsus said, he repented, and reflected that he, being but a man himself, was casting another alive into the flames who formerly had been no whit inferior to himself in prosperity: and being also in dread of divine vengeance, and considering that nothing human is unchangeable, he ordered the fire to be forthwith extinguished, and Crœsus, with his companions, to be taken down; but his officers, with all their endeavours, were unable to master it. Then Crœsus, as the Lydians say, discovering that Cyrus had changed his purpose, when he saw that all were endeavouring, and yet were unable to quench the fire, called loudly upon Apollo, entreating the god, if that he ever had offered any acceptable gifts, now to stand by, and deliver him from the present evil. And as he called upon the god in tears, suddenly clouds collected in the serene sky, and the storm broke down, and a torrent of rain fell, and extinguished the fire. Cyrus, therefore, being by these means instructed that Crœsus was a good man, and beloved by the gods, inquired of him, when he was come down from the pile, ‘Crœsus, who persuaded you to invade my kingdom, and thus become an enemy instead of a friend?’ And he said, ‘O king, I have done thus to further your good, and my own evil fate: but the god of the Grecians, who puffed me up to war, has been the author of these events. For no man is so witless as to choose war instead of peace, when, in the one, fathers bury their sons, and in the other, sons their fathers. But it was the pleasure of the gods that these things should turn out thus.’

“Thus spoke Crœsus, and Cyrus released him, and kept him near his person, and thenceforth treated him with much respect.”[96]

The evident intermixture of fable with this tale is calculated to throw doubt upon the whole of it, and indeed it seems at variance with the character of Cyrus. That Xenophon omits all mention of the circumstances related would be a strong argument in disproof of them, if they were calculated to advance his hero’s reputation; but in the present case his silence is of little weight. The close resemblance, however, between the preservation of Crœsus, and the miraculous deliverance of the Jewish youths condemned by Nebuchadnezzar to the furnace, might warrant us in suspecting that some account of so impressive a display of Divine power had reached the western coast of Asia, and that the careless or unfaithful annalists of those early times transferred the scene from Babylon to Lydia, and substituted the names best known in their own history for the barbarian appellations of the Assyrian monarch and his prisoners. This idea may be supported by the expression of Herodotus, that Cyrus condemned Crœsus to be burnt “because of his piety, that he might know whether any god would deliver him from being burnt alive.” Cyrus was neither cruel nor a scoffer, so that we cannot suppose it to have been an impious jest, and can as little imagine that it was a serious experiment on the part of the Persian to try the power of the Grecian deities. It is not very likely, therefore, that such a reason was invented to account for the action; but the recorded preservation of the Jews, and the decree of Nebuchadnezzar “that there is no other god that can deliver after this sort,” may well enough have led to the inference that the monarch’s object was to prove the power which in the end he was obliged to confess.

No extraordinary quantity either of humanity or reflection was necessary to have impressed on Cyrus’s mind, in the first instance, the truths contained in Solon’s warning to his rival. But humanity towards prisoners was no virtue of antiquity; and in this respect the practice of European nations of modern times offers a striking contrast to that of heathenism in all ages and regions. Our Scandinavian ancestors and the North American Indians put prisoners to death for revenge, or for the mere pleasure of inflicting pain: the rude Druids and the comparatively polished priests of Mexico alike esteemed an enemy’s blood the most grateful offering to their savage deities. The histories of Greece and Rome abound also with acts of atrocious cruelty; while the East is notorious alike for the frequent changes of her dynasties, and for the unsparing policy which has prompted successive conquerors to establish their own thrones by the extermination of all possible claimants.

It is not fair, however, to select none but unfavourable examples; and of favourable ones, few or none are more celebrated than the generosity of Alexander and the virtue of Scipio. After Alexander had gained the important battle of Issus (b.c. 333), in the Persian war, Darius’s family fell into the victor’s hands.[97] They were treated with the respect due to their rank and their misfortunes. “Not long after, one of his queen’s eunuchs escaped to Darius, who, when he saw him, first asked whether his children and his wife and mother were alive. And hearing that they were so, that they were addressed as queens, and enjoyed all the respect and attention which they had possessed at his own court, he inquired in addition, whether his wife had preserved her faith; and being satisfied on this point also, he again inquired whether any insult or violence had been offered to her. The eunuch affirmed with an oath, ‘O king, your wife remains even as you left her, and Alexander is the best and most temperate of men.’ Upon which Darius lifted up his hands towards heaven, and prayed, ‘O sovereign Jupiter, in whose hands are placed the fortunes of kings upon earth, above all things do thou maintain the kingdom of the Medes and Persians, which thou hast given to me! But if thou wilt that I be king of Asia no longer, then intrust my power to none but Alexander.’”[98]

Closely akin to this in all its circumstances is the celebrated story of the continence of Scipio, who has obtained immortal praise by surrendering untouched to her lover a beautiful Spanish lady who had been selected from the other prisoners and presented to him; and from the admiration testified by all antiquity for the virtue displayed alike by the Grecian and the Roman hero, we may form an opinion of the treatment which captives generally endured. We have no wish to detract from the praise which is justly due to them, or to undervalue the merit of those who precede their age in humanity and refinement; but it is worthy of observation that in modern times, far from such conduct being regarded as an effort of virtue almost super–human, infamy or death would be the portion of a general who acted otherwise. These exceptions therefore do really serve to confirm the rule; and the extravagant commendation which has been bestowed upon such self–denial bears incontrovertible evidence to the general want of generosity in conquerors, and to the unhappy condition of the conquered.

Few foreigners of regal dignity or exalted fortune fell into the power of the Grecian commonwealths: of their treatment of each other’s citizens we shall have occasion to speak hereafter. But the gigantic grasp of Roman ambition comprehended the most powerful of the earth, and made them drink deep of degradation. The usual lot of prisoners of war was slavery; a practice bad enough, but common to the rest of antiquity with Rome: the institution of triumphs is her peculiar glory and distinction. Something may be said in palliation of a victor, who, having possession of his enemy, obviates the danger of further resistance or revolt by committing him to that narrow prison from which alone there is no chance of escape. But when a Roman general’s arms were crowned with success, the prisoners of highest estimation were carefully reserved; and when all danger from their life was at an end, and their degradation, as far as external circumstances can degrade, was complete, after they had been led in chains before their conqueror’s car, to swell his vanity and satiate the pride of Rome, they were sent to perish unheeded and unlamented by the hands of the executioner, and the thanksgiving due to the gods and the triumphal banquet were delayed until the savage ritual was duly performed. “Those even who triumph, and therefore grant longer life to the hostile chiefs, that from their presence in the procession the Roman people may derive its fairest spectacle and fruit of victory, yet bid them to be led to prison when they begin to turn their chariots from the Forum to the Capitol; and the same day puts an end to the conqueror’s command and to the life of the conquered.”[99] They led the prisoners to execution at the moment when the triumphal chariot began to ascend the Capitoline hill, in order, they said, that their moment of highest exultation might be that of their enemies’ extremest agony. There is a needless barbarity and insolence in the whole proceeding which is peculiarly disgusting; and which was aggravated by the solemn hypocrisy of placing in the triumphal chariot a slave to whisper in the victor’s ear, “Remember that thou art a man,” when in the same instant they displayed so signal a disregard for the reverses to which humanity is exposed, and such contempt for the lessons which that warning ought to have taught.

We may take as an example the treatment of Jugurtha, king of Numidia; for whom, indeed, so far as his own merits are concerned, no treatment could have been too severe. “Marius, bringing home his army againe out of Lybia into Italy, took possession of his consulship the first day of January, and therewithall made his triumph into the city of Rome, shewing that to the Romans which they thought never to have seen; and that was, king Jugurth prisoner, who was so subtill a man, and could so well frame himself unto his fortune, and with his craft and subtilty was of so great courage besides, that none of his enemies ever hoped to have had him alive. But it is said that after he was led in this triumph, he fell mad straight upon it; and the pompe of triumph being ended, he was carried unto prison, where the serjeants, for hast to have the spoil of him, tore his apparel by force from off his back: and because they would take away his rich gold earrings, that hung on his eares, they pulled away with them the tippe of his eare, and then cast him naked to the bottome of a deep dungeon, his wits being altogether troubled, Yet when they did throw him downe, laughing he said, ‘O Hercules, how cold are your baths!’ He lived there yet six days, fighting with hunger, and desiring alwaies to prolong his miserable life to the last hour: the which was a just deserved punishment for his wicked life.”[100]

Marius, however, with all his military talents was but a rude and blood–thirsty soldier. From Cæsar, on the contrary, who throughout the civil wars displayed signal generosity and mildness of temper, we might have expected a fairer estimate of the treatment due to a noble enemy. But in his treatment of Vercingetorix those noble qualities are exchanged for the haughty and selfish cruelty which the foreign policy of Rome was most admirably calculated to produce. That prince, after a most gallant and almost successful stand in defence of the liberties of Gaul, being shut up in Alesia, and reduced to extremity by Cæsar, surrendered himself to the victor’s mercy in hope of obtaining better terms for his comrades. The scene is thus described by Dion Cassius:—

“Vercingetorix being still at liberty, and unwounded, might have escaped; but hoping, for the sake of their previous friendship, to obtain forgiveness from Cæsar, he went out to him without notice of his coming. And while the Roman general was seated on the tribunal, he appeared suddenly, so as to alarm some persons, for he was tall of stature, and made a gallant appearance in his armour. All around being hushed, he said nothing, but fell on his knee, stretching out his hand in gesture of supplication. All others were struck with compassion, both by the recollection of his former high state, and by the exceeding piteousness of the spectacle before them. But Cæsar made that from which he chiefly expected to derive safety, the heaviest charge against him; for, dwelling on the return for his friendship, he made the injury appear the heavier. And therefore he pitied him not in that conjuncture, but for the present cast him into bonds, reserving him until his triumph, after which he slew him.”[101]

But Rome, which had so often insulted the majesty of fallen royalty, endured in the person of one of her emperors a greater degradation than any which she had inflicted. When the emperor Valerian was taken prisoner by Sapor, king of Persia, his life was spared, but spared that his age might waste in the most humiliating slavery; and when the haughty monarch mounted his horse, he used the prostrate body of his royal captive for a footstool. That, said the haughty Sapor, was a real triumph; not painting imaginary processions upon walls, as the Romans did. To gratify the victor’s pride still more, he was compelled to wear the imperial purple and decorations, and in this attire, laden with chains, he followed in the train of Sapor, and exhibited to the whole Persian empire a striking picture of the fallen pride of Rome. This system of insult extended even beyond the grave: his skin is related to have been dyed scarlet, and stuffed, and then placed in a temple as an enduring monument of the shame of Rome. The Christian writers, who alone relate all the particulars of Valerian’s humiliation,[102] see in it the just vengeance of God for his persecution of our faith: the reason, probably, that Gibbon seems inclined to consider the story as a pious fiction. If so, however, it soon obtained currency, for the Emperor Constantine, who flourished not much more than half a century after the event, alludes to it in a letter to the king of Persia: “All these emperors (the persecutors of Christianity) have been destroyed by such a dreadful and avenging end, that since their times all mankind doth usually wish their calamities may fall as a curse and punishment upon those who shall study to imitate them. One of which persons I judge him to have been (him, I mean, whom divine vengeance like a thunderbolt drove out of our regions, and conveyed unto your country) who by his own disgrace and ignominy erected that trophy so much boasted of among you.”[103]

Somewhat similar to the indignities offered to Valerian was the treatment which the Sultan Bajazet is said to have experienced from Tamerlane after his defeat and capture.

Closed in a cage, like some destructive beast,
I’ll have thee borne about in public view;
A great example of the righteous vengeance
That waits on cruelty and pride like thine.[104]

Voltaire and other modern writers have discredited this story, chiefly on the authority of D’Herbelot. It has been shown, however, by Sir W. Jones, that the premises of that distinguished orientalist are false, and his authority therefore falls to the ground. On the other hand, Leunclavius, in his History of the Turks, professes to have heard from an old man, who was in Bajazet’s service at the time of his defeat, “that an iron cage was made by Timour’s command, composed on every side of iron gratings, through which he could be seen in any direction. He travelled in this den slung between two horses. Whenever Timour and his retinue, on moving his camp, made ready for a journey, he was usually carried before; and after the march, when they dismounted, he was placed upon the ground in his cage, before Timour’s tent.” Poggio also, himself a contemporary, mentions this strange imprisonment as an undoubted fact.[105]

The English reader will find some countenance for the story in Edward the First’s inhuman treatment of the Countess of Buchan. That lady having dared, it is said, in virtue of hereditary privileges, to place the crown of Scotland on the Bruce’s head, and afterwards falling into the English monarch’s hands, was confined in a cage built upon one of the towers of Berwick Castle, exposed, as it should seem, to the rigour of the elements and the gaze of passers by. One of Bruce’s sisters was similarly dealt with. So much for the devoted respect paid to women in the age of chivalry, and that by a prince who, when young, was inferior to none in knightly renown. But the demoralizing effects of absolute power found a fitting subject to work upon in Edward’s stern and unforgiving temper. The original order for the Countess’s confinement is to this effect:—

“Ordered and commanded, by letters under the privy seal, to the Chamberlain of Scotland, or his deputy at Berwick–upon–Tweed, that in one of the turrets, upon the castle of that place, in such place as he shall chuse, and shall be most convenient, he do make a cage of strong lattice–work and bars, and well strengthened with iron–work, in the which he shall place the Countess of Buchan.

“And that he shall so well and surely guard her in the same cage, that in no manner shall she pass out from it.

“And that he do appoint one or two English women of the said town of Berwick who shall be in no wise suspected, who understand to serve the said Countess with meat and drink, and all things pertaining to her.

“And that he do so well and strictly guard her in the cage, that she speak to none, and that no man or woman of the Scotch nation, nor any other appear before her, but only the woman or women who shall be assigned her, and those who shall have guard of her.

“And that the cage be so made, that the Countess may have there the convenience of a fair chamber, but that it be so well and surely ordered, that no danger may betide in respect of the custody of the said Countess.

“And that he who has care of her be charged to answer for her, body for body, and that he be allowed her expenses.

“In like manner it is ordered that Mary, sister of Robert Bruce, sometime Earl of Carrick, be sent to Roxburgh, to be kept there in the castle, in a cage.”[106]

The reader will not sympathise much with the harshness of Bajazet’s durance, if he knows the character of that redoubtable conqueror. The following passage will convey a fair idea of it, and presents a good specimen of the style of the 15th century:—

“In the year 1396, Sigismond, King of Hungry, sent sweet and amyable letters to the French king by a notable ambassador, a bysshop and two knights of Hungry. In the same letters was contayned a greate parte of the state and doyng of the greate Turke (Bajazet), and how that he had sent worde to the King of Hungry, that he would come and fight with him in the middes of his realme, and would go fro thens to the cytie of Rome, and would make his horse to eate otes upon the high altar of Saynt Peter, and there to hold his see imperiale. Thus the King of Hungry in his letters prayed the French king to ayde and succour him.”[107] In consequence of this application, a strong body of French and other knights marched into Hungary, under command of John of Burgundy, Earl of Nevers. They crossed the Danube, and after a successful campaign were besieging Nicopolis in union with the Hungarian forces, when Bajazet marched to the relief of that city. The loss of the battle which ensued is attributed by Froissart to the precipitance of the French knights, who led the van, and rushed madly into combat, against the order of the King of Hungary, and without waiting for his support. The biographer of the Marshal Boucicaut, on the other hand, throws the whole blame upon the cowardly desertion of the Hungarians. However this may be, the French charged in a body not exceeding 700 men,[108] routed the first body of Bajazet’s cavalry, and penetrated through a line of stakes, behind which the infantry were formed. “Then the noble Frenchmen, like men already enraged at the loss which they had endured, ran upon them with such valour and hardihood that they frightened all. I may not say how they laid upon them. For never did foaming boar, or angry wolf, shew a fiercer recklessness of life. There the valiant Marshal of France, Boucicaut, among other brave men, thrust himself into the thickest press, and well proved whether he were grieved or no. For there without fail did he so many acts of arms, that all marvelled, and there bore himself so knightly, that whoso saw him still avers there never was any man, knight or other, seen to do in one day more brave and valiant acts than he did then.”[109] The Earl of Nevers, the Lord of Coucy, and the other French nobility well approved their valour; but Boucicaut, if we may trust his biographer, was the hero of the day. Mounted on a powerful war–horse, he spurred forwards, and struck so fiercely to the right and to the left that he overthrew everything before him. “And ever doing thus, he advanced so far, which is a marvellous thing to relate, and yet true, as all who saw it can bear witness, that he cut through the whole Saracen array, and then returned back through them to his comrades. Heaven, what a knight! God protect his valour! Pity will it be when life shall fail him! But it will not be so yet, for God will protect him. Thus fought our countrymen as long as their strength lasted. Ah, what pity for so noble a company, approved so gentle, so chivalrous, so excellent in arms, which could have succour from no quarter, so ran they in to their enemies’ throats, so as is the iron on the anvil![110] For they were surrounded and oppressed so fatally on all sides that they could no longer resist. And what wonder? for there were more than twenty Saracens against one Christian! And yet our people killed more than 20,000 of them, but at last they could exert themselves no more. Ah, what a misfortune, what pity! Ought not those disloyal Christians to have been hanged who thus falsely abandoned them? Shame fall upon them, for had they helped the valiant French and their comrades with good will, not Bajazet nor one of his Turks would have escaped death or captivity, which would have been a mighty good to all Christendom.

“Great pity was there again the morrow of this dolorous battle. For Bajazet, sitting within a tent in the midst of the field, caused to be led before him the Earl of Nevers and those of his lineage, with all the French barons, knights, and esquires who remained after the slaughter of that field. Sad was it to see these noble youths, in the prime of life, of blood so lofty as that of the royal line of France, fast bound with ropes, disarmed, in their under doublets, conducted by these ugly, frightful dogs of Saracens before the tyrant enemy of the faith who sat there. He knew for certain, through good interpreters, that the Earl of Nevers was grandson and cousin–german to a king of France, and that his father was a duke of great power and wealth, and that others were of the same blood and nearly related to the king. So he bethought himself, that for preserving them he might have great treasure: therefore he did not put them to death, nor any other of the greatest barons, but made them sit there on the ground before him. Alas! immediately after began the cruel sacrifice. For then were led before him the noble Christian barons, knights, and esquires, naked; and then, as they paint on the walls King Herod sitting on a chair, and the Innocents cut in pieces before him, there were our faithful Christians cut in pieces by these Saracen curs before the Earl of Nevers and under his very eyes. So you may understand, you who hear this, what grief went to his heart, good and kind lord as he is, and what pain it gave him to see thus martyred his good and loyal companions, and his people that had been so faithful to him, and who were so distinguished for gallantry. Certes I think he was so grieved at heart, that fain would he have been of their company in that slaughter. And so the Turks led them one after another to martyrdom, as men led in old times the blessed martyrs, and struck their heads and chests and shoulders fearfully with great knives, and felled them without mercy. Well may one know with what woful countenances they went in that sad procession. For even as the butcher drags a lamb to the slaughter, so were our good Christians, without a word being spoken, led to die before the tyrant. But notwithstanding that their death was hard and their case pitiful, every good Christian should esteem them thrice fortunate, and born in a happy hour, to receive such a death. For they must sometime have died, and God gave them grace to die in the advancement of the Christian religion, the holiest and worthiest death (as we in our faith hold) that a Christian can die; and also he made them to be the companions of the blessed martyrs, the happiest of all the orders of Saints in Paradise. For there is no doubt but that they are Saints in Paradise, if they met their fate with good will. In this piteous procession was Boucicaut, the Marshal of France, naked, except his small clothes (petits draps). But God, who willed not to lose his servant, for the sake of the good service which he was to do thereafter, as well in avenging the death of that glorious company upon the Saracens, as in the other great benefits which were to follow from his talents and by his means, caused the Earl of Nevers to look at the Marshal and the Marshal at him right sorrowfully, at the very moment that some one was about to strike him. Then was the foresaid Earl wonderfully vexed at heart for the death of such a man, and he called to mind the great good, the prowess, loyalty, and valour that were in him. So, on a sudden, God put it in his mind to clasp his hands together as he looked at Bajazet, and he made sign that the Marshal was to him as a brother, and that he should respite him: which sign Bajazet soon understood, and released him. When this stern execution was complete, and the whole field was strewed with the bodies of these blessed martyrs, as many French as others of divers countries, that cursed Bajazet arose, and ordered the Marshal, who had been so respited, to be committed to prison in a large handsome town of Turkey, called Bursa. So his bidding was done, and he was kept there till the arrival of the said Bajazet.”[111]

Innumerable instances of the like ferocity might be produced from Eastern history. Rowe’s polished and pious Tamerlane put to death 100,000 persons in the streets of Delhi. Few men have so well and fairly estimated their own character, and the class to which they belong, as did Nadir Shah, when to the remonstrance, “If thou art a king, cherish and protect thy people,—if a prophet, shew us the way of salvation,—if a God, be merciful to thy creatures,” he replied, “I am neither a king to protect my subjects, nor a prophet to teach the way of salvation, nor a God to exercise the attribute of mercy; but I am he whom the Almighty has sent in his wrath to chastise a world of sinners.” The following anecdote, striking in itself, is the more interesting as an exception to a general rule: “In the year 1068 Alp Arslan, the second sultan of Persia, of the Seljukian dynasty, defeated and took prisoner Romanus Diogenes, husband of Eudocia, the reigning empress of Constantinople. He treated his prisoner with extreme kindness and distinction; he uttered no reproaches that could wound a humbled monarch, but gave vent to the honest indignation of a warrior at the base and cowardly conduct of those who had deserted and abandoned so brave a leader. We are told that he asked his captive at their first conference, what he would have done if fortune had reversed their lot. ‘I would have given thee many a stripe,’ was the imprudent and virulent answer. This expression of haughty and unsubdued spirit excited no anger in the brave and generous conqueror. He only smiled, and asked Romanus what he expected would be done to him? ‘If thou art cruel,’ said the emperor, ‘put me to death. If vain–glorious, load me with chains, and drag me to thy capital. If generous, grant me my liberty!’ Alp Arslan was neither cruel nor vain–glorious: he released his prisoner, gave all his officers who were captives dresses of honour, and distinguished them by every mark of friendship and regard.”[112]

Far from wishing to cast an undue reproach upon the past by these melancholy details of cruelty and suffering, we should have been glad to relieve the narrative by more numerous instances of generosity and mercy. But that these virtues are not the attributes of a savage race, will readily be granted by all: that they are not necessarily the fruit of refinement and civilization (if that term be applicable to an advanced stage of art and knowledge, without a corresponding improvement in moral wisdom) is shown by the universal experience of the past, and nowhere more forcibly than in the history of Greece and Rome. The progress of society seems only to have taught one lesson; that it is better to make the conquered subservient to the profit or amusement of the conqueror, than to put him to death, like any other formidable or offensive animal. In man’s earliest and rudest condition, as a hunter, slaves are worse than useless; for sustenance is of more value than labour, and the precarious supply of the chase is insufficient to provide permanently and plentifully for his own wants. The avenging or preventing encroachments upon each other’s hunting–ground is therefore a most frequent cause of warfare among neighbouring tribes, and the massacre of the conquered is prompted equally by revenge and policy. We find accordingly that in North America a prisoner’s only chance of escape lay in being adopted into the hostile tribe in the place of some one who had fallen in battle. The still more savage practice of feasting upon prisoners is sufficiently proved to have existed at a very recent period in New Zealand. In other heathen countries they have been reserved from indiscriminate slaughter, only to perish on the altars of false gods. But labour becomes valuable, and the command of labour an advantage, in proportion as men emerge from barbarism, and apply themselves to agriculture, or a pastoral life; and when it is found out that a prisoner’s services may be made worth more than his maintenance, the policy of the victor changes, and he preserves an enemy whom formerly he was almost compelled to destroy. Slavery, therefore, is, in the infancy of nations, an index of increasing civilization, and an amelioration of human misery, since the bulk of mankind have ever hailed with joy a respite from death, even though existence be attended with degradation and suffering. A generous spirit, indeed, would be little gratified at receiving life upon terms of hopeless servitude; yet even to such the introduction of slave labour lightened the evils of defeat. When men were detained merely for the value of their services, it was natural to release them if an equivalent for that value were paid, and hence arose the custom of admitting prisoners to ransom, which exercised a two–fold influence in favour of slaves: first by enabling them to acquire freedom at the sacrifice of wealth; secondly, by removing the utter hopelessness and degradation of their state, and introducing a possibility that the slave and master might some day be replaced in their original relation to each other. This practice was familiar in the Homeric age, though revenge or the heat of battle often caused mercy and interest to be alike disregarded. Melancholy indeed was the fate of a captured city. The adult males were usually slaughtered, the females and children reserved for slavery; those even of the highest rank were employed as menial servants in the victor’s household. “What evils,” says Priam, “does Jupiter reserve me to behold on the threshold of age! My sons slain, my daughters dragged into slavery, my chambers plundered, the very infants dashed against the ground in mournful warfare, and my sons’ wives dragged by the destructive hands of the Greeks. The dogs which I fed in my palace, at my own table, to protect it, will tear me, even me, stretched dead at the outer door, as they lie ravening in the vestibule lapping my blood. To a young man it is becoming to lie slain in warfare, pierced by the sharp sword; to such nothing that can happen in death is unseemly. But that dogs should defile the grey head and the grey beard of a slaughtered elder, this is the mournfulest thing that happens to wretched mortals.”[113]

For the lot of those who were reserved, we may quote Hector’s parting speech to Andromache.

I know the day draws nigh when Troy shall fall,
When Priam and his nation perish all:
Yet less forebodings of the fate of Troy,
Her king, and Hecuba, my peace destroy;
Less that my brethren, all th’ heroic band,
Should with their blood imbrue their native land;
Than thoughts of thee in tears, to Greece a prey,
Dragged by the grasp of war in chains away,
Of thee in tears, beneath an Argive roof
Labouring reluctant the allotted woof,
Or doomed to draw, from Hypereia’s cave,
Or from Messeis’ fount, the measured wave.
A voice will then be heard which thou must bear,
‘See’st thou yon captive, pouring tear on tear?
Lo! Hector’s wife, the hero bravest far
When Troy and Greece round Ilion clashed in war.’[114]

As time advanced the Greeks became more humane, and the treatment of their prisoners improved; insomuch that about the year 500 b.c. it seems to have been usual among the Peloponnesian states to admit each other’s citizens to ransom at a fixed sum of two minæ, something less than eight pounds of our money;[115] and the Athenians released certain Bœotians for the same sum.[116] The meridian splendour of Greece, as we shall have future occasion to notice, is more especially dimmed by the cold–blooded cruelty of her civil wars. It is observable, however, that in the 10th year of the Peloponnesian war, the mutual restoration of prisoners formed a condition in a treaty of peace; and this, we believe, is the first instance on record at all resembling the humane usage of the present day.

In the youth of Rome, as she gradually extended her dominion, cities were depopulated to be refilled by her citizens, and their inhabitants sold like cattle, by public auction.[117] In her days of greatness, when whole kingdoms fell before her, the rights of conquest were necessarily more leniently exercised; for nations cannot be dispossessed and enslaved in mass. But the number of Greek and of Syrian slaves in Rome shows that the independence of those nations was not overturned without a corresponding loss of private freedom; and those uncivilised countries, which could contribute little else of wealth to satiate a Roman general’s extortion, saw droves of their inhabitants sold into captivity to supply the labourers and gladiators of an idle and dissolute empire.[118] The exemption of modern Europe, from these horrors is chiefly referable to the influence of Christianity, which, however ineffectual to purify the minds and lives of a vast majority of those who have outwardly embraced it, has given unquestionable proof of its intrinsic excellence by refining and enlarging men’s views of morality and benevolence, wherever its doctrines have not been altogether obscured and corrupted.[119] It is true that in the reign of Justinian, Constantinople witnessed for the first and only time the insolent splendour of a Roman triumph, granted to Belisarius after the reduction of the Vandal kingdom; on which, as on former occasions, the noblest of the conquered nation, headed by Gelimer, their king, swelled the vainglorious procession. But the changed spirit of the times is shown in the subsequent treatment of them. To the king and his family a safe retirement and an ample estate in Galatia were allotted; and the flower of the Vandal youth were enlisted, and served with distinction in the Persian wars. Among other claims to our gratitude, the clergy of the dark ages have the merit of steadily resisting the practice of enslaving Christians. The working of the feudal system was also beneficial in this respect. The aristocracy of the land were also its soldiery; to make prisoners, therefore, was a greater object than to kill, for the ransom of prisoners was a never–failing source of revenue to the brave and powerful. And as the inferior classes might not be reduced to domestic servitude, and besides passed naturally with the land, whether as serfs, in absolute and acknowledged bondage, or as vassals, free in name, but bound to the soil by all the ties of property, the victor had no interest in the detention of prisoners, except such as were able to purchase freedom. The singular institutions of chivalry also exercised a strong influence in humanizing warfare. Knighthood formed a bond of union throughout Europe. Men fought for gain, for honour, for revenge; but victory, which ensured all but the last, was seldom tarnished by cruelty, except in instances of deadly feud. We are by no means inclined to overrate the savage virtues of those times, or to deny that they abound in examples of most flagrant cruelty and oppression; but we contend, that compared with earlier ages, place even barbarism against refinement, the half–savage Teuton against the polished Greek or Roman, we see the tokens of a vast improvement in this respect. And we may further observe that of the cruelties recorded a large proportion are foreign to the question, being perpetrated in prosecution of the cherished spirit of revenge, or to extract wealth from Jews, or others of inferior rank, and not on prisoners of war. We do not plead this in extenuation of those enormities; the evil passions of the heart sprung up unchecked into a plentiful harvest of evil actions: but of cruelty to their prisoners of war, the Europeans and the middle ages were comparatively guiltless. Among them, for the first time in history, the victor and the defeated mixed in social intercourse upon terms of equality, without degradation being felt by the one, or an undue and ungenerous superiority assumed by the other; each aware that on the morrow the turn of fortune might reverse their situations, and that disgrace attached to misfortune only when occasioned by misconduct.[120] And the lofty, though fantastic notions of honour which prevailed, tended still further to lighten captivity, when the word of a knight was considered as sufficient surety for his ransom, and prisoners were enabled to obtain their release upon parole. Nowhere is this courteous and humane spirit more strongly marked than in the wars of England and Scotland during the 14th century. Yet we might expect to find the warfare of that century distinguished by more than usual inhumanity. The perfidious aggression, the inveterate hostility of Edward I., were calculated to raise in the Scotch a most implacable resentment; while the obstinate resistance and successful reprisals in which our northern counties were repeatedly devastated, were equally well fitted to inspire the English with no friendly feelings towards their northern brethren. A hundred years had elapsed since the first quarrel, during which the sword had scarcely been sheathed, the fire of burning villages scarcely quenched. We might reasonably then expect to find these wars carried on “à outrance;” to find no mercy in their battles, no gentleness or generosity in their intercourse. But the account of Froissart is very different.

“Englysshmen on the one partye, and scottes on the other partye, are goode men of warre, for when they mete there is a hard fight, without sparynge; there is no troo bytwene them as long as speares, swordes, axes, or dagers wyll endure, but lay on eche upon other; and whan they be well beaten, and that the one parte hath optaygned the victory, they then glorifye so in their dedes of armes, and are so ioyfull, that such as be taken, they shall be raunsomed or they go out of the felde, so that shortely eche of them is so content with other, that at their departynge curtoysly they will saye, Gode thank you, but in fyghtynge one with another there is no playe, nor sparynge; and this is trewe, and that shall well apere by this sayde rencounter (of Otterbourn), for it was as valyauntly foughten as coulde be devysed.... This batayle was fierse and cruell, tyll it came to the end of the discomfiture; but whan the scottes saw the englysshmen recule, and yelde themselves, than the scottes were curtes, and sette them to their raunsom, and every manne sayde to his prisoner, Sirs, go and unarm you and take your ease, I am your mayster; and so made their prisoners as goode chere as though they had been brethern, without doyng them any damage.”[121]

Another anecdote of the same battle, from the same graphic and delightful historian, will serve to illustrate more than one of the points to which the reader’s attention has been drawn. Sir Matthew Reedman, the governor of Berwick, fought under Percy at Otterbourn and endeavoured to escape when fortune declared against the English.

“Now I shall shewe you of sir Mathue Reedman, who was on horsback to save himselfe, for he alone coulde not remedy the mater: at his departing sir James Lynsay was nere to hym, and sawe how sir Mathue departed, and this sir James, to wyn honour, folowed in chase sir Mathue Reedman, and came so nere hym, that he myght have stryken hym with his speare if he had lyst; than he sayd, Ah sir knyght, tourne, it is a shame thus to flye: I am James of Lynsay: if ye will not tourne I shall stryke ye on the back with my spere. Sir Mathue spake no worde, but strake his horse with the spurs sorer than he dyde before. In this maner he chased hym more than thre myles, and at last sir Mathue Reedman’s horse foundred and fell under hym: than he stepte forthe on the erthe, and drewe oute his sworde, and took corage to defende hymselfe: and the scotte thought to have stryken him on the brest, but sir Mathue Reedman swarved from the stroke, and the speare poynt entred into the erthe: then sir Mathue strake asonder the spere with his sworde; and whan sir James Lynsay sawe howe he had loste his speare, he caste awaye the tronchon, and lyghted afote, and toke a lytell batayle–axe that he caryed at his backe, and handeled it with his one hande, quickely and delyverly, in the whiche feate scottes be well experte, and than he set at sir Mathue and he defended hymselfe properly. Thus they tourneyed toguyder, one with an axe, and the other with a swerde, a long season, and no man to lette them: fynally, sir James Lynsay gave the knyght suche strokes, and helde hym so shorte, that he was putte out of brethe in such wyse that he yelded hymselfe and sayde, Sir James Lynsay, I yelde me to you. Well, quod he, and I receyve you, rescue or no rescue. I am content, quod Reedman, so you deale with me lyke a good companyon. I shall nat fayle that, quod Lynsay, and so putte up his swerde. Well, sir, quod Reedman, what wyll you nowe that I shall do? I am your prisoner, ye have conquered me; I wolde gladly go agayne to Newcastell, and within fyftene dayes I shall come to you into Scotlande, whereas ye shall assigne me. I am content, quod Lynsay: ye shall promyse by your faythe to present yourself within this thre wekes at Edenborowe, and wheresoever ye go, to reporte yourselfe my prisoner. All this sir Mathue sware, and promysed to fulfyll. Than eche of them toke their horses, and toke leave, eche of other. Sir James returned, and his entent was to go to his owne company the same way as he came, and sir Mathue Reedman to Newcastell. Sir James Lynsay could nat keep the ryght waye as he came: it was darke, and a myst, and he hadde nat rydden halfe a myle, but he met face to face with the bysshoppe of Durham and mo than v hundred Englysshmen with hym: he myght wel have escaped, if he had wolde, but he supposed it had been his owne company that had pursued the Englisshmen: whan he was among them, one demaunded of hym what he was. I am, quod he, sir James Lynsay. The bysshoppe herde those words, and stepte to hym, and sayde, Lynsay, ye are taken; yelde ye to me. Who be you? quod Lynsay. I am, quod he, the bysshop of Durham. And fro whens come ye, sir? quod Lynsay. I come fro the batayle, quod the bysshoppe, but I strake never a stroke there; I go back to Newcastell for this night, and ye shall go with me. I may nat chuse, quod Lynsay, sithe you will have it so: I have taken, and I am taken; such is the adventures of armes. Whom have ye taken? quod the bysshop. Sir, quod he, I toke in the chase sir Mathue Reedman. And where is he? quod the bysshop. By my faythe, sir, he is retourned to Newcastell: he desyred me to trust hym on his fayth for thre wekes, and so have I done. Well, quod the bysshop, lette us go to Newcastell, and there ye shall spake with hym. Thus they rode to Newcastell toguyder, and sir James Lynsay was prisoner to the bisshop of Durham.”

“After that sir Mathue Reedman was retourned to Newcastell, and hadde shewed to dyvers howe he had been taken prisoner by sir James Lynsay; than it was shewed him howe the bisshoppe of Durham had taken the sayd sir James Lynsay, and how that he was thene in the towne as his prisoner: as sone as the bysshoppe was departed, sir Mathue Reedman wente to the bysshoppes lodgyng to see his mayster, and there he founde hym in a studye, lyeng in a wyndowe, and sayd, What, sir James Lynsay, what make you here? Than sir James came forth of the studye to hym, and gave hym good morowe, and sayd, By my fayth, sir Mathue, fortune hath brought me hyder; for as sone as I was departed fro you, I mette by chaunce the bysshoppe of Durham, to whome I am prisoner, as ye be to me. I beleve ye shall nat nede to come to Edenborowe to me to make your fynaunce: I think rather we shall make an exchaunge one for another, if the bysshoppe be so contente. Well, sir, quod Reedman, we shall accorde ryght well toguyder: ye shall dyne this daye with me; the bysshop and our men be gone forthe to fyght with your men. I can not tell what shall fall; we shall know at their retourne. I am content to dyne with you, quod Lynsay. Thus these two knyghtes dyned toguyder in, Newcastell.”[122]

Some danger unquestionably there was, that where the marketable value of prisoners was so clearly recognised, humanity would be forgotten in avarice; a lapse of memory which our acquaintance with Algiers and other piratical states proves not altogether impossible. One of the causes which prevented this, the union and equality produced by knighthood, has been alluded to; and we may find another in the high–spirited notions of personal honour which prevailed.[123] To refuse a prisoner his liberty upon payment of ransom, either directly or covertly, by demanding a sum disproportionate to his rank and means, was held dishonourable; for a knight would have esteemed himself disgraced if it could be suspected that he retained an enemy in prison through fear of meeting him in the open field. “After that the Prince of Wales was returned from Spain into Acquitayne, and his brother, the Duke of Lancastre, into Englande, and every lorde into his owne, sir Bertram du Guesclin was styll prisoner with the prince, and with sir Johan Chandos, and coulde nat come to his raunsome, nor fynaunce, the whiche was sore displeasaunt to kyng Henry,[124] if he might have mended it: and it so fortuned after, as I was enformed, that on a day the prince called to hym sir Bertram du Guesclin, and demaunded of hym how he dyde; he answered and sayd, Sir, it was never better with me; it is reason that it shulde be so, for I am in prison with the most renowned knyght of the worlde. With whome is that? sayd the prince. Sir, quoth he, that is with Sir Johan Chandos; and, sir, it is sayd in the realme of Fraunce, and in other places, that ye feare me so moche, that ye dare nat let me out of prison, the whiche to me is full great honour. The prince, who understode well the wordes of sir Bertram du Guesclin, and parceyved well how his own counsayle wolde in no wyse that he shuld delyver hym, unto the tyme that king Don Peter had payed him all suche sommes as he was bound to do. Than he sayd to sir Bertram, Sir, then ye thinke that we kepe you for feare of your chivalry; nay, thynke it nat, for I swere by saint George, it is nat so; therfore pay for your raunsome an hundred thousand fraunkes, and ye shall be delyvered. Sir Bertram, who desyred gretly to be delyvered, and herde on what poynt he might depart, toke the prince with that worde, and sayd, Sir, in the name of God so be it, I wyll pay no lasse. And whan the prince herde hym say so, he wolde than gladly have repented hymselfe; and also some of his counsayle came to hym, and sayd, Sir, ye have nat done well so lightly to put him to his raunsome. And so they wolde gladly have caused the prince to have revoked that covenant; but the prince, who was a true and noble knight, sayd, Sithe that we agreed therto, we wyll nat breke our promise; it shulde be to us a grete rebuke, shame and reproche, if we shulde nat put him to raunsome, seyng he is content to pay such a grete somme as an hundred thousand fraunkes.”[125]

The following story of William Rufus, which is told by William of Malmsbury, illustrates the character of the man, rather than the spirit of the age. Helias de Flechia laid claim to the city of Mans, part of that monarch’s continental possessions. He was taken and brought before William, who said insultingly, “I have you, sir.” “You have taken me by chance,” said the baron; “could I escape, I should find something new to do.” The hot–headed king, shaking his fist, replied, “You rascal, what would you do? Troop, shog off, make yourself scarce—you may do what you can; and by the face of St. Luke, if you get the better of me, I will ask you nothing for this favour.”[126]

In conclusion we give a celebrated passage from English history, which is strongly and pleasantly contrasted with the early part of the chapter. It is well known that the king of France was taken prisoner by the Black Prince at the battle of Poictiers. “The day of the batayle at night, the prince made a supper in his lodginge to the frenche kyng, and to the moost parte of the great lordes that were prisoners: the prince made the kynge, and his son, the lorde James of Bourbon, the lorde John D’Artois, the erle of Tancarville, the erle D’Estampes, the erle Dampmertyne, the erle of Gravyll, and the lorde of Pertenay, to syt all at one borde, and other lordes, knyghtes, and squiers at other tables; and alwayes the prince served before the kyng as humbly as he coude, and wolde nat syt at the kynges borde, for any desyre that the kynge could make: but sayd he was nat sufficient to syt at the table with so great a prince as the kyng was; but than he sayd to the kyng, Sir, for goddes sake make none yvell, nor heavy chere, though god this day dyd not consent to folowe your wyll: for syr, surely the kyng my father shall bere you as moche honour and amyte as he may do, and shall acorde with you so reasonably that ye shall ever be frendes toguyder after; and sir, methinke ye ought to reioyse, though the journey[127] be nat as ye wolde have had it, for this day ye have wonne the hygh renome of prowes, and have past this day in valyantnesse all other of your partie: sir, I say natte this to mocke you, for alle that be on our partie that saw every mannes dedes are playnly acorded by true sentence to gyve you the price and chapelette. Therewith the frenchemen began to murmure, and sayd among themselves how the prince had spoken nobly; and that by all estimation he shulde prove a noble man, if Gode send him lyfe, to perceyver in such good fortune. Whan supper was done, every man went to his lodgyng with their prisoners: the same night they put many to raunsome, and beleyved them upon their faythes and trouthes, and raunsomed them but easily, for they sayde, they wolde sette no knyghts raunsom so hygh, but that he might pay at his ease and mayntaygne still his degree.

“The same wynter the prince of Wales, and such of Englande as were with him at Bardeaux, ordayned for shippes, to convey the frenche king and his son and all other prisoners into Englande. Then he took the see, and certayne lordes of Gascoyne with hym: the frenche kyng was in a vessell by hymselfe, to be the more at hys ease, accompanyed with two hundred men at arms, and two thousand archers: for it was showed the prince that the thre estates, by whom the realme of France was governed, had layed in Normandy and Crotoy two great armyes to the entent to mete with hym, and to gette the frenche kyng out of his handes if they might: but there were no such that apered, and yet thei were on the see xi dayes, and on the xii day they aryved at Sandwych; then they yssued out of their shyppe, and lay there all that nyghte, and taryed there two dayes to refresh them; and on the therde day they rode to Canterbury. When the kynge of Englande knew of their commynge, he commaunded them of London to prepare theym, and their cyte, to receyve suche a man as the frenche kyng was: then they of London arrayed themselfe, by companyes, and the chief maisters clothing different fro the other; at saynt Thomas of Canterbury the frenche kyng and the prince made their offerynges, and there taryed a day, and than rode to Rochester, and taryed there that day, and the next day to Dartforde, and the fourth day to London, wher they were honourably receyved, and so they were in every good towne as they passed: the frenche kynge rode through London on a whyte courser, well aparelled, and the prince on a lyttell black hobbey by hym: thus he was conveyed along the cyte till he came to the Savoy, the which house pertayned to the heritage of the duke of Lancaster; there the frenche kynge kept hys house a long season, and thyder came to se hym the kyng and the quene ofttimes, and made him great feest and chere.”[128]

It has been said that the Prince’s conduct was too ostentatiously humble; that in refusing to sit at table with the King of France, and in making him the principal object of attention in their entry into London, he exceeded the modesty of a conqueror, and exposed himself to the charge of hypocrisy. The censure is, we think, erroneous, and arises from ignorance of the feelings of the times. The humility of the Black Prince was that of a vassal in presence of his feudal lord, due, not because he owed allegiance to the King of France, but because that monarch was the peer of the King of England, and in courtesy entitled, especially as a visitor, though a forced one, to an equal measure of respect from his subjects. The victor merely overlooked the fortune of war, and paid to his royal prisoner the homage which he would have shown to his father, and which the King of France would have received from the heir to his own crown.

EXTRACT FROM THE LIFE OF MESSIRE BERTRAND DU GUESCLIN.

(Referred to in the Note, p. [104].)

“One day the Prince of Wales was risen from dinner, and gone into a private chamber with his barons, who had been served with wine and spices. So they began to speak of many a bold deed of arms, of love–passages, of battles, and of prisons, and how St. Louis to save his life was made prisoner in Tunis, from whence he was ransomed for fine gold, paid down by weight. Until the Prince, who spoke without caution, said, ‘When a good knight well approved in battle is made prisoner in fair feat of arms, and has rendered himself, and sworn to abide prisoner, he should on no account depart without his master’s leave. And also one should not demand such portion of his substance, that he be unable to equip himself again.’ When the Sire de Lebret heard these words, he began to take heed, and said to him, ‘Noble Sire, be not angry with me if I relate what I have heard said of you in your absence.’ ‘By my faith,’ said the Prince, ‘right little should I love follower of mine sitting at my table, if he heard said a word against my honour, and apprised me not of it.’ ‘Sire,’ said he of Lebret, ‘men say that you hold in prison a knight whose name I well know, whom you dare not delyver.’ ‘It is true,’ said Oliver de Clisson, ‘I have heard speak of it.’ Then the Prince swore and boasted, ‘that he knew no knight in the world, but, if he were his prisoner, he would put him to a fair ransom, according to his ability.’ And Lebret said, ‘How then do you forget Bertrand du Guesclin, that he cannot get away?’ And when the Prince heard this, his colour changed; and he was so tempted by pride, anger, and disdain, that he commanded Bertrand to be brought before him; with whom he wished to make terms, in spite of all who had spoken of the matter, and would fain not let him be ransomed, unless they themselves should fix the amount. Then certain knights went and found Bertrand, who, to amuse himself and forget his weariness, was talking with his chamberlain. Which knights saluted him. And Bertrand arose towards them, and showed a fair seeming, saying ‘that they were come in good time.’ Then he ordered the aforesaid chamberlain to bring wine. The knights answered ‘that it was right fitting they should have much wine, good and strong; for they brought him good, joyful, and pleasant news with good will.’ Then one of them who was wise and discreet said, ‘that the Prince sent for him to appear in his presence, and he thought that he would be ransomed by help of those friends he had at court, who were many.’ ‘What say you?’ said Bertrand; ‘I have neither halfpenny nor penny, and owe more than ten thousand livres, that have been lent me, which debt has accrued in this city while I have been prisoner.’ One of them inquired of him, ‘How have you accounted for so much?’ ‘I will answer for that,’ said Bertrand; ‘I have eaten, drunk, given, and played at dice with it. A little money is soon spent. But if I be set free, I shall soon have paid it: he saves his money, and has it in good keeping, who shall for my help lend me the keys of it.’ And an officer who heard him said, ‘Sir, you are stout–hearted, it seems to you that every thing which you would have must happen.’ ‘By my faith,’ said Bertrand, ‘you are right, for a dispirited man is nothing better than beaten and discomfited.’ And the rest said, ‘that he was like one enchanted, for he was proof against every shock.’ Then he was brought to the chamber where was the Prince of Wales, and with him John Chandos, a true and valiant knight. And had they chosen to believe him, they would long before have disposed of the war: for he gave much good advice. And also there were Oliver de Clisson and other knights, before whom came Bertrand, wearing a grey coat. And when the Prince saw him, he could not keep from laughing, from the time he saw him. Then he said, ‘Well, Bertrand, how fare you?’ And Bertrand approached him, bowing a little, and said, ‘Sir, when it shall please you, I may fare better: many a day have I heard the rats and mice, but the song of birds it is long since I heard.[129] I shall hear them when it is your pleasure.’ ‘Bertrand,’ said the Prince, ‘that shall be when you will; it will depend only on yourself, so that you will swear, and make true oath, never to bear arms against me, nor these others, nor to assist Henry of Spain. So soon as you will swear this, we will fully set you free, and pay that you owe, and besides give 10,000 florins to equip you anew, if you consent to this; else you shall not go.’ ‘Sire,’ said Bertrand, ‘my deliverance then will not come to pass; for before I do so, may I lie by the leg in prison while I live. God willing, I will never be a reproach to my friends. For by Him who made the world, I will serve with my whole heart those whom I have served, and whose I have been from my outset. These are the good King of France, the noble Dukes of Anjou, of Berry, of Burgundy, and of Bourbon; whose I have been, as became me. But so please you, suffer me to go. For you have held me too long in prison, wrongfully and without cause; and I will tell you how I had gone from France, I and my people meaning to go against the Saracens. And so I had promised Hugh de Carvalay, intending to work out my salvation.’ ‘Why then went you not straight without stopping?’ said the Prince. ‘I will tell you,’ said Bertrand in a loud voice. ‘We found Peter,—the curse of God confound him! who had long since thrice falsely murdered his noble Queen, born of the noble line of Bourbon, and of the blood of my Lord, St. Louis, which lady was your cousin by the best blood in your body. Straightway then I stopped, to take vengeance for her, and to help Henry; for well I know, and surely I believe, that he is the right king and the true heir of Spain. And also to destroy, and put to an end, Jews and Saracens, of whom there are too many in these parts. Now through great pride you have come to Spain to the best of your ability, both through covetousness of gold and silver, and that you may have the throne after the death of Peter, who reigns wrongfully, by which journey you have, in the first place, injured your own blood, and troubled me and my people: whence it has come to pass, that after you have so ruined your friends, and you and your people have been all famished, and suffered great pain and labour, Peter has deceived you by cheating and trickery, for he has not kept faith nor covenant with you, for which, by my faith, I thank him heartily.’ When Bertrand had related his reasons, the Prince rose, and could not help saying that on his soul Bertrand was right, and the barons said that he had spoken truth. Then was there great joy stirring all round and about, and they said of Bertrand, one to another, ‘See there a brave Breton.’ But the Prince called, and said to him, ‘You shall not escape me without paying a good ransom; and yet it vexes me that you obtain such favour. But men say that I keep you prisoner because I fear you; and to the end that every one may cease to suspect this, and may know that I neither fear nor care for you, I will deliver you on payment of sufficient ransom.’ ‘Sir,’ said Bertrand, ‘I am a poor knight of little name, and not so born as that I should find help in plenty. And besides, my estate is mortgaged for purchase of war–horses, and also I owe in this town full ten thousand florins. Be moderate, therefore, and deliver, me.’ ‘Where will you go, fair Sir?’ said the Prince. ‘Sir,’ said Bertrand, ‘I will go where I may regain my loss, and more I say not.’ ‘Consider then,’ said the Prince, ‘what ransom you will give me: for what you will shall be enough for me.’ ‘Sir,’ said Bertrand, ‘I trust you will not stoop to retract your meaning. And since you are content to refer it to my pleasure, I ought not to value myself too low. So I will give and engage for my freedom one hundred thousand double golden florins.’ And when the Prince heard him his colour changed, and he looked round at his knights, saying, ‘Does he mean to make game of me that he offers such a sum? for I would gladly quit him for the quarter.’ ‘Bertrand,’ said he, ‘neither can you pay it, nor do I wish such a sum; so consider again.’ ‘Sire,’ said Bertrand, ‘since you will not so much, I place myself at sixty thousand double florins; you shall not have less, sobeit you will discharge me.’ ‘Well,’ said the Prince, ‘I agree to it.’ Then said Bertrand loudly, ‘Sir, Prince Henry may well and truly vaunt that he will die King of Spain, cost him what it may, and he will lend me one half my ransom, and the King of France the other; and if I can neither go nor send to these two, I would get all the spinstresses in France to spin it rather than that I should remain longer in your hands.’[130] And when the Prince had heard him he thus said: ‘What sort of man is this? He startles at nothing, either in act or thought, no more than if he had all the gold which is in the world. He has set himself at sixty thousand double florins, and I would willingly have quitted him for ten thousand.’ And all the barons also marvelled greatly. ‘Am I then at liberty?’ said the gallant Bertrand. And Chandos asked him whence the money should come. ‘Sir,’ said he, ‘I have good friends, as I shall find, I am certain.’ ‘By my faith,’ said Chandos, ‘I am much rejoiced therefore, and if you have need of my help, thus much I say, I will lend you ten thousand.’ ‘Sir,’ said Bertrand, ‘I thank you. But before I seek anything of you I will try the people of my own country.’ The news of this matter went through the city of Bordeaux. There you might see all persons, great and small, citizens, and artisans of all sorts, run towards the mansion of the Prince to see Bertrand. And when the Prince’s knights saw the people assemble thus, and knew the cause of their coming, they brought the said Bertrand to lean out at a window, who laughed heartily at the matter. And when the commoners saw him from a distance, they said, ‘He is a downright enemy! cursed be the hour that he escapes alive. He has done much evil, and will do worse.’ And others said, ‘Have we idled and yawned, and run away from our business, to look at such a squire as this? May God bless him not! for he is an ugly fellow, and unable to pay the ransom at which he is valued.’ ‘Whence should he draw it?’ said others; ‘he will never pay a single penny of his own, but will pilfer it through the broad land.’ And those who knew Bertrand better said to them, ‘Now argue not so much in using such words, for there is no better knight in the world, and none that better knows how to make war. And there is no castle, however strong, however high the rock on which it stands, that would not soon surrender if he went thither to assault it: and, throughout the kingdom of France, there is no man nor woman, however poor, who would not contribute, if he needed it, rather than that he should remain in prison.”[131]

[ill114]

CHAPTER IV.

Tyranny of Cambyses, terminating in madness—of Caligula—of the Emperor Paul.

No questions which can become the subject of judicial examination are more delicate and difficult than those which depend upon a man’s mental sanity, whether the case be of a civil or a criminal nature; whether it regard his competence to manage his own affairs, or his possession of that moral feeling of right and wrong in the absence of which he cannot be justly punished as a responsible agent. In the first instance, daily experience shows us that general eccentricity, and even delusion upon particular subjects, may exist in union with the most acute perception of personal interests; in the second, it is equally clear that the moral sense may be perverted upon one or more points without being destroyed, and indeed without any other indication of mental disease. We may take as an example of this the burning of York Cathedral some years ago. Martin believed this to be morally a meritorious act, and herein lay his madness: on a case of murder, robbery, or any other infraction of the laws, he would have judged aright. But though he believed it to be meritorious, he knew it to be illegal; he knew that he was subject to punishment, and fled from it accordingly: and upon this ground the question might be raised, whether his madness should have protected him from the penalty affixed to his act. But exclusively of those more strongly marked cases, which alone are likely to become subjects of judicial inquiry, no man can converse extensively with the living, or, through the medium of books, with the dead, without continually asking himself whether the eccentricity, perverseness, intemperance, and extravagance which he sees on all sides are compatible with a perfectly sound state of mind. Mental as well as bodily illness may assume all shapes, and be of all degrees: and both reflection and observation lead us to conclude that excessive indulgence of the passions will impair the understanding, as surely as sensual intemperance injures the constitution. It would not be difficult to enumerate a long list of causes tending more or less to unsettle the reason; indeed, no pursuit, however unexciting it may seem, can be exclusively followed without risk of this result. Science has its dangers as well as love: the philosopher’s stone and the quadrature of the circle have probably turned as many heads as has female ingratitude, from the time of Orlando Furioso downwards. At present, however, we mean to confine ourselves to one particular manifestation of insanity, or something nearly allied to it, with the view of illustrating, in some degree, that large portion of history which is occupied by the crimes and follies of absolute monarchs.

In reading such narratives as the following, we naturally wonder how it is that anything human can have been led to play a part so entirely at variance with all the kindly feelings of human nature. To believe that Caligula and Nero came into the world fully prepared for the part which they were afterwards to play, would be as unreasonable as to adopt the other extreme, and maintain, as some have done, that the tempers and abilities of all men are originally similar and equal. But “the child is father of the man.” The work of education begins at an early period, and circumstances seemingly too trivial to notice, may exert a powerful effect in fixing our future destiny for good or evil. There are few persons whose patience has not been more or less tried by spoiled children, and who cannot point out examples where the temper of the mature man has been seriously injured by early injudicious indulgence; and many must know cases in which the paroxysms of a naturally bad temper, exasperated by uncontrolled licence and habitual submission, have amounted almost to occasional insanity. Causes closely analogous to those which render one man the dread of his domestic circle, may render another the terror and the scourge of half the earth. The same spirit which vents itself in ill–humour for a broken piece of china, or execrations for an ill–cooked dinner, if fostered by power, might correct breaches of etiquette with the knout, and deal out confiscations and death as unsparingly as oaths. We may observe that, bloody and unfeeling as their administration may have been, it is not among the adventurers who have carved their own way to a crown that the wantonness of tyranny has been most developed; it is rather among their descendants, men nurtured among parasites, with the prospect of despotism ever before their eyes. Surrounded from infancy by those whose interest it has been to pamper, not to repress their evil passions, taught, in Pagan countries, to regard themselves as gods, and worshipped as such by a servile and besotted multitude, what wonder that they tread under foot those who bow the neck before them, and scorn to sympathise with a confessedly inferior race? In private life, however, the regulation of the mind may be neglected, the supremacy of law, and the knowledge that excess, beyond a certain point, cannot be committed with impunity, exerts a salutary restraint over the wildest spirits. But he who is above the influence of fear, whose angry passions have never been checked, nor his desires controlled, and who is harassed by the craving after excitement consequent upon satiety of sensual pleasures, is prepared for any caprice or enormity which the humour of the moment may suggest. The mind can hardly be thus morally depraved without becoming intellectually depraved also: as the animal man is cherished, and the reasonable man neglected, the former will assume the guidance due to the latter, and human becomes little superior to brute nature, except in its greater power to do mischief. In this state of degradation

Even–handed justice
Condemns the ingredients of the poisoned chalice
To our own lips.

The dominion of the passions is worse than external oppression, and conscience exasperates, after it has lost its power to reform. Misery may then complete the ruin which intemperance began, and cruelty, from being only indifferent, become congenial.

If a man deprives himself almost of the common necessaries of life, for the purpose of accumulating money which he will never use or want; if he sleeps all day, and wakes all night; if he chooses to wear his shoes upon his hands, and his gloves upon his feet, or indulge in any other such ridiculous fancies; we call him odd, eccentric, a madman, according to the degree of his deviation from established usages: and justly, for in all these things a sound mind is wanting. Yet that man may be perfectly able to foresee the consequences of his actions, perfect master of his reason upon every subject; and therefore be both legally and morally responsible. It is a state of mind strictly analogous, as we believe, to this, which has produced the worst excesses of the worst oppressors; and one which has sprung from the same cause—habitual submission to the will instead of the reason. From the childish passion of George II., who manifested his displeasure on great occasions by kicking his hat about the room, to the superhuman crimes of Caligula, we find this disease, if we may call it so, manifested in every variety of degree and form. In Henry VIII. of England, we trace it in the contrast between the early and later years of his reign, in the increased violence of his passions, and in the capriciousness and cruelty ingrafted on a temper not naturally ungentle. We ascribe to it the ungovernable fury which obscured the brilliant qualities of Peter of Russia; and we find it still more strongly marked in the extravagances which are ascribed to Xerxes. His very preparations for invading Greece, on a scale so disproportionate to the value of his object if attained, show how subordinate was his judgment to his inclinations; and no one can read the narration of his chastisement of the Hellespont, without recognising the weakness of a mind unsettled by extravagant presumption. “When Xerxes heard that his bridges were carried away, he was much vexed, and ordered three hundred lashes to be given to the Hellespont, and a pair of fetters to be cast into it. And I have heard that he sent men at the same time to brand the Hellespont. Moreover, he commanded those that inflicted the stripes to use unholy and barbarian language, saying, ‘Thou bitter water, thy master inflicts this punishment upon thee, because thou hast wronged him, having received no injury at his hands. And King Xerxes will cross thee, whether thou wilt or no: and, as is fit, no one sacrifices to thee, because thou art a salt and crafty river.’ So he ordered them to punish the sea thus, and to cut off the heads of the Grecians who had charge of the bridge.”[132] This is as downright frenzy as the walls of Bedlam ever witnessed: a paroxysm of temporary insanity, produced by disappointment acting on a vain, ungoverned mind.

Before proceeding to relate in detail the lives of some remarkable persons which bear upon the point in question, we wish briefly to allude to the very singular and striking history of Nebuchadnezzar, though with no view of resolving that preternatural visitation, which is expressly stated to have been from God, into a natural consequence of his intemperate pride. From the few notices of him preserved in the Bible, he seems to have been a man cast in no ordinary mould; to have been endowed with powers and capability of excellence commensurate with the exalted situation which he was appointed to hold. It is evident, however, that he had drunk deep of the intoxication of despotism. His intended massacre of the wise men, and the Chaldeans, in point of wisdom and justice is on a par with the anger of a child who beats his nurse because she will not give him the moon to play with; and his conduct with respect to the image of the plain of Dura, if less preposterous, is not more creditable to his notions of toleration or humanity. In fact, he appears to have been in a fair way to become as truculent a tyrant as Cambyses or Caligula, when that awful vision, related at length in the fourth chapter of Daniel, was presented to him, which foretold his banishment from the throne and from men: and we may infer from the warning of the inspired interpreter, and from the course of the narrative, that his overweening pride and hardness of heart, the food and origin of that mental alienation of which we have been speaking at such length, were the vices against which Divine anger was especially directed. “This is the decree of the Most High, which is come upon my lord the king: They shall drive thee from men, and thy dwelling shall be with the beasts of the field, till thou know that the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will.... Wherefore, O king, let my counsel be acceptable unto thee, and break off thy sins by righteousness, and thine iniquities by showing mercy to the poor: if it may be a lengthening of thy tranquillity.... At the end of twelve months he walked in the palace of the kingdom of Babylon. The king spoke and said, Is not this the great Babylon that I have built for the house of the kingdom, by the might of my power, and for the honour of my majesty? While the word was in the king’s mouth, there fell a voice from heaven, saying, O King Nebuchadnezzar, to thee it is spoken; the kingdom is departed from thee. And they shall drive thee from men, and thy dwelling shall be with the beasts of the field; they shall make thee to eat grass as oxen, and seven times shall pass over thee, until thou know that the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will.”[133]