THE GIRLS’ BOOK OF FAMOUS QUEENS

QUEEN VICTORIA.

THE
GIRLS’ BOOK OF FAMOUS QUEENS

BY
LYDIA HOYT FARMER
AUTHOR OF “THE BOYS’ BOOK OF FAMOUS RULERS,” “A SHORT
HISTORY OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION,” “THE LIFE
OF LA FAYETTE”
TWELFTH THOUSAND
NEW YORK
THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO.
PUBLISHERS

Copyright,
By Thomas Y. Crowell & Co.
1887.
Typography by J. S. Cushing & Co.
————————
Presswork by Berwick & Smith, Boston.

DEDICATED
TO
MY DAUGHTER.

PREFACE.

IN the annals of history, women have played an important part; and among the famous sovereigns of the world, queens, as well as kings, have made their names illustrious by heroic deeds and great enterprises.

The names which we have chosen for this book do not include all the renowned female sovereigns; but their lives present some of the most important epochs in the world’s history.

I am indebted to the assistance of my son, in the sketches of Queen Marie Antoinette and the Empress Eugénie.

THE AUTHOR.

CONTENTS.

GIRLS’ BOOK OF FAMOUS QUEENS.

SEMIRAMIS.
2069 B.C.

“What shall I do to be forever known,

And make the age to come my own?”—Cowley.

THE name of Semiramis is associated with the story of Nineveh’s glory, and the building of the mighty city of Babylon. And though historians differ widely regarding the time of her famous reign, and some even express doubts whether she ever really existed, holding that her story was a mythological legend, her name is too illustrious to be passed over in silence, and her deeds too remarkable to be ignored, if she did in truth live; and if the story is a mere legend, it is, moreover, so interwoven with historical records as to deserve mention.

The date we have chosen from among many, covering more than a thousand years, is the date of the founding of Nineveh by Ninus, who was said to be the son of the mighty Nimrod, whom some say founded this great city; his son only embellishing it. Rollin states that Nimrod was probably the famous Belus of the Babylonians, afterwards deified by the people and worshipped under the name of Baal.

The birth of Semiramis, the celebrated queen of Assyria, is shrouded in mystery. Legends say that she was born at Ascalon, a city of Syria, and that she was the daughter of the goddess Derceto, and that her father was an Assyrian youth of striking beauty. Being deserted by her mother, she was fed by doves in the desert; and when she was about a year old, a shepherd named Simmas found the infant in a rocky place, and he adopted the foundling as his child, calling her Semiramis.

When she had grown to maidenhood, she was remarkable for her great beauty, and was also possessed of an unusual intelligence. Menones, the governor of Nineveh, having on one occasion been sent by King Ninus to inspect his Syrian flocks, beheld this beautiful maiden at the shepherd’s dwelling, and being intensely pleased by her marvellous beauty, made her his wife. So great a power did Semiramis obtain over her husband Menones, that he was soon completely subject to her wishes, and so much did he respect her judgment that he sought her advice upon every project. King Ninus previously to this time had subjugated in seventeen years all the nations of Asia, with the exception of the Indians and the Bactrians. He had conquered Babylonia, Armenia, Media, Egypt, Phœnicia, Cœle Syria, Cilicia, Lycia, Lydia, Mysia, Phrygia, Bithynia, Cappadocia, and reduced the nations on the Pontus as far as the Tanais. Then he made himself master of the land of the Cadusians and Tapyrians, of the Hyrcanians, Drangians, Derbiccians, Carmanians, Chorasmians, Barcians, and Parthians. He also conquered Persia, Susiana, and Caspiana. Ninus then determined to build a mighty city, and so he founded Nineveh, or finished the work which his father had begun.

This city was built on the bank of the river Tigris. The circumference of the city was sixty miles, and it was surrounded by walls one hundred feet high, and so broad that three chariots might ride abreast upon the top. The walls were fortified with fifteen hundred towers, each two hundred feet high. When this great city was completed, King Ninus determined to march against the Bactrians, who yet withstood his power. According to the accounts of Ctesias and Diodorus, his army numbered 1,700,000 foot-soldiers, 210,000 cavalry, and about 10,600 chariots of war. The narrowness of the passes which protect the entrance to Bactria forced Ninus to divide his forces. The king of the Bactrians met him with 400,000 men. The Assyrians were successful in forcing their way into the country, but they suffered great loss. At length all of the cities were captured except Bactria, the chief city, where was the palace of the king. Ninus now besieged this city, and Menones, who was one of the chief counsellors of the king, sent for his wife Semiramis to come to the camp. Semiramis seized this favorable opportunity to display her power. She clothed herself in peculiar garments, so that it could not be ascertained whether she was a man or a woman; and this style of robe at a later day became the costume of the Medes and Persians. When she arrived in the camp, she perceived that the attack was directed chiefly against that part of the city lying in the plain, and not against the citadel; and she also perceived that this caused the Bactrians to guard their fortifications with less vigilance. She thereupon made selection of a body of troops who were accustomed to climbing, and led them in person to the attack of the citadel. This she captured, and then signalled to the army below in the plains. The Bactrians, perceiving that their citadel was taken, made weak resistance, and the city was conquered. King Ninus so admired the daring courage of this beautiful woman who had gained for him such a victory, that he determined to make her his wife, and offered his own daughter to Menones, in exchange for his wife Semiramis. But Menones was too much attached to his wife to relinquish her to another, and then Ninus threatened to put out the eyes of Menones unless he would consent to this arrangement. The unhappy Menones, overcome with jealous love and fear, hung himself in despair, and King Ninus then married Semiramis. Accounts differ regarding the death of Ninus, which placed Semiramis upon this powerful throne. According to some, Ninus died after reigning fifty-two years, and bequeathed to her the sovereign power, their young son, Ninyas, being too young to reign. Others state that Ninus, at the request of Semiramis, granted to his young and beautiful wife the absolute sovereignty of his empire for five days. The young queen of twenty was seated upon the royal throne, the signet ring was placed upon her finger, and all the provinces of the realm were commanded to do her reverence, and obey implicitly her decrees.

Semiramis, having thus secured supreme authority, made most ungrateful and wicked use of her power. She thereupon commanded her husband to be imprisoned, and afterwards put to death; and then declared herself his successor, and reigned alone during the remainder of her life. Whether she killed her husband or not, she is said to have erected for him a magnificent tomb adjoining the famous Tower of Belus, and adorned it with statues of massive gold.

She now resolved to immortalize her name by the erection of marvellous monuments, and undertaking mighty and difficult enterprises. She determined to surpass the fame of Ninus; and accordingly undertook the founding, or embellishment, of the great city of Babylon, in which work she is said to have employed two millions of men.

The foundation of Babylon had already been commenced by the builders of the famous Tower of Babel. Among the works in Babylon attributed to Semiramis, are the walls and towers and citadels; the bridge over the Euphrates, the temple of Belus, and the excavation of the lake to draw off the waters of the Euphrates. She is said to have founded other cities on the Euphrates and Tigris. She built huge aqueducts, connected various cities by roads and highways, in the construction of which she was forced to level mountains and fill up valleys. She is said to have marched with a large army to Media, and planted the garden near Mount Bagistanon. This mountain is more than ten thousand feet high, and she caused its steep face to be smoothed, and on it her picture was cut, surrounded by one hundred guards. She afterwards made another large garden near the city of Chauon, in Media, and in the midst of it, upon a high rock, she erected a splendid palace, in which she remained for a long time. In Ecbatana she also built a magnificent palace; and in order to provide the city with water, she caused a tunnel to be cut through the base of the lofty mountain Orontes, to a lake lying upon its further side. The following is one of the many inscriptions she caused to be carved upon the monuments of her power and surprising greatness.

“Nature bestowed on me the form of a woman; my actions have surpassed those of the most valiant of men. I ruled the empire of Ninus, which stretched eastward as far as the river Hyhanam, southward to the land of incense and of myrrh, and northward to the country of the Scythians and Sogdians. Before me, no Assyrian had seen the great sea. I beheld with my own eyes four seas, and their shores acknowledged my power. I constrained the mighty rivers to flow according to my will, and I led their waters to fertilize lands that had been before barren and without inhabitants. I raised impregnable towers; I constructed paved roads in ways hitherto untrodden but by the beast of the forests; and in the midst of these mighty works I found time for pleasure and for friendship.”

Semiramis was very vigilant and daring in the administration of her government. It is related that one morning, when she was making her toilet, it was reported to her that a revolt had broken out among a portion of the citizens. She immediately rushed forth, half-attired, with hair floating in disorder, and bravely faced the tumultuous crowd of rioters. Her presence and eloquence quickly appeased their fury, and then she returned and calmly finished her toilet.

At length she determined to subjugate India. For two years she made preparations for this expedition. Her army consisted of 3,000,000 foot-soldiers, 500,000 horsemen, and 100,000 chariots. As the Indians were famous for their vast numbers of elephants which they used in battle, which were considered almost invincible, Semiramis determined to endeavor to overcome this obstacle by stratagem. She accordingly ordered 100,000 camels to be covered with the sewn skins of black oxen, in imitation of elephants; and each animal was mounted by a warrior. For crossing the Indus, 2,000 ships were built, and then taken to pieces and strapped on the backs of camels, while travelling on land. Stabrobates, the king of the Indians, had raised a mighty force to meet her. As Semiramis approached his realm, he sent messengers to her to inquire why she was making war upon him, and demanding to know who she was who thus dared to invade his kingdom. The haughty Assyrian queen replied, “Go to your king, and tell him I will myself inform him who I am and why I am come hither.”

In the first contest Semiramis was victorious, and she took 100,000 prisoners; a thousand ships of the Indians were sunk in the Indus. But the Indian king, pretending flight, led the army of Semiramis after him. Having caused a large bridge to be built over the Indus, Semiramis landed her entire army on the other side, and with her mock elephants in front of her forces, she pursued the retreating Indians. At first the Indians were alarmed by these false elephants; but finding out the stratagem, the king of India turned, and attacking Semiramis with his real elephants, her troops were put to flight, and she herself was wounded by an arrow and javelin thrown by the Indian king, who was mounted on his largest elephant. Semiramis and the remnant of her army hastened across the Indus; and as Stabrobates had been warned by seers not to cross the river, they came to terms of capitulation, and exchanged prisoners. Then Semiramis returned to Assyria with only one-third of her army left.

When she arrived again within the borders of her own kingdom, she was informed that her son Ninyas had conspired against her. As the oracle in the temple of Jupiter Ammon had previously declared that when her son should conspire against her, she would disappear from the sight of mortals and be received among the immortals, this news occasioned no resentment against Ninyas; but she immediately abdicated the throne and transferred the kingdom to him, and is said to have put herself to death, as though according to the oracle she had raised herself to the gods. Others relate that she was reported to have been changed into a dove, and thereupon flew out of the palace with a flock of doves. Wherefore, the Assyrians regard Semiramis as an immortal, and the dove as sacred to divinity. She was sixty-two years of age, having reigned forty-two years.

The following is one of the inscriptions in which she gives her own genealogy, claiming celestial origin. She is said to have inscribed her name and praises of her own greatness upon many of the monuments she erected to immortalize herself.

“MY FATHER WAS JUPITER BELUS;
MY GRANDFATHER, BABYLONIAN SATURN;
MY GREAT-GRANDFATHER, ETHIOPIAN SATURN;
MY GREAT-GRANDFATHER’S FATHER, EGYPTIAN SATURN;
AND MY GREAT-GRANDFATHER’S GRANDFATHER, PHŒNIX
CŒLUS OGYGES.”

This amusing catalogue of high-sounding ancestors may not seem so very ridiculous in view of the supposition that she never did exist as a mortal, but that her name and exploits have come down through the legends of poetry. For it is stated by some authorities that the story of Semiramis, as related by Ctesias, from which source Diodorus takes his account, was founded upon Medo-Persian poems sung by the minstrels of Media and Persia, and that these poems represent the Assyrians as worshipping a female deity, who was called Istar-Bilit, the war-goddess, and also goddess of love. Istar of Arbela was the goddess of battle, and Istar of Nineveh was the goddess of love. Doves were sacred to her, and in the temples of Syria there were statues of this goddess with a golden dove on her head. She was invoked there under the name of Semiramis, a word meaning “high name.” Thus the Medo-Persian minstrels have changed the legend of an Assyrian goddess into a heroine, and made her the founder of the Assyrian empire, just as Greek poets represent their heroes as children of the Immortals of Olympus.

Whether the story of Semiramis is a fabulous legend, or whether she is really a historical character, is rather difficult to determine; but her supposed exploits are so interwoven with Assyrian and Babylonian history that most authorities give her a prominent historical place; and if half of her marvellous deeds are true, she must without doubt hold an illustrious place amongst the famous queens of ancient history.

DIDO.
937 B.C.

“As on the banks of Eurotas, or on Mount Cynthus’ top, Diana leads her train of mountain nymphs, bearing her quiver on her shoulder, and moving majestic, she towers above the other goddesses; such Dido was, and such, with cheerful grace, she passed amid her train, urging forward the labor of founding and enlarging her mighty kingdom.”—Virgil.

THERE are two accounts given of the famous Queen Dido. According to the historian Justin, Dido, called also Elissa, was the daughter of Belus II., king of Tyre. Ithobal, king of Tyre, and father of the famous Jezebel, called in Scripture Ethbaal, was said to have been her great-grandfather. Upon the death of Dido’s father, her brother Pygmalion came to the throne. Dido married her maternal uncle, Acerbas, who is also called Sichæus by Virgil. Acerbas was the priest of Hercules, an office next in rank to that of king.

This priest possessed immense treasures which King Pygmalion desired to secure, and thereupon he assassinated Acerbas whilst the priest was officiating at the altar. Dido, who was greatly attached to her husband, was horrified at her brother’s atrocious wickedness, and inconsolable in her great loss. She immediately determined to flee from Tyre, and take with her the treasures of her husband, that they might not fall into the hands of the avaricious murderer. Having secretly collected quite a number of followers, Dido embarked in a fleet, and sailed from Tyre. Pygmalion, fearing that he would lose the coveted treasures, sent messengers to his sister begging her to return. The ships of Pygmalion’s ambassadors having overtaken Dido, they delivered to her the request of the king. Dido apparently assented, but took the precaution when embarking to place in her ship, in the presence of Pygmalion’s messengers, several bales filled with sand, which she informed them contained the treasures. When they were out at sea, Dido commanded her attendants to throw these bales into the sea; and then representing to those who had come from the monarch that only death awaited them, should they return to Pygmalion without the treasure, which they now supposed was buried in the ocean, she induced them to become her companions in her flight. Thereupon large numbers of the chief men joined her party. Dido, with her fleet, sailed first to Cyprus, which island had belonged to the dominions of her father, who had conquered it. Here she was met by the priest of Jupiter, and together with his entire family, he joined her expedition, in obedience to the supposed will of the gods. Dido also took on board her fleet eighty maidens of Cyprus, who afterwards married her Tyrian subjects.

Having been driven by a storm on to the coast of Africa, Dido bargained with the inhabitants for the purchase of some land upon which to make a settlement. The natives, fearful of the power of these new neighbors, would only consent to sell such a portion of land as could be covered by a bull’s hide. But the wily Dido was not to be thus baffled; and conceding to their terms with apparent willingness, she cut the hide of the bull into long and slender thongs, thus being able to enclose with them a large portion of ground. The space thus purchased was hence called Byrsa, from the Greek word, meaning “a hide,” though some writers contend that the name of Byrsa, the citadel of Carthage, was derived from the Punic term Basra, “a fortification.” Around this first settlement the city of Carthage arose, and Byrsa became the citadel of the place.

It is said, that when the foundations were dug, a horse’s head was found, which was thought to be a good omen, and a presage of the future warlike genius of the people. After this Tyrian colony had become established, the fame of their queen, Dido, gained for her many suitors. But she refused all their offers, having made a vow that she would remain faithful to the memory of her husband, Acerbas. At length, Iarbas, king of Mauritania, sought her hand in marriage, and threatened war if his offers were rejected. Justin thus tells the story:—

Iarbas, sending for ten of the principal Carthaginians, demanded Dido in marriage, threatening to declare war against her in case of refusal. The ambassadors, being afraid to deliver the message of Iarbas to their queen, told her with Punic honesty, that he wanted to have some person sent him who was capable of civilizing and polishing himself and his Africans, but that there was no possibility of finding any Carthaginian who would be willing to leave his place and kindred, for the conversation of barbarians, who were as savage as the wildest beasts. Here the queen, with indignation interrupting them, and asking if they were not ashamed to refuse living in any manner which might be beneficial to their country, to which they owed even their lives, they then delivered the king’s message, and bade her set them a pattern, and sacrifice herself to her country’s welfare. Dido being thus ensnared, called on Sichæus with tears and lamentations, and answered that she would go where the fate of her city called her. She demanded three months for consideration. During this interval she caused a large funeral pile to be erected, as if for the purpose of offering a propitiatory sacrifice to the manes of Acerbas. At the expiration of the time allotted she ascended the fatal pile, and with her last breath told the spectators that she was going to her husband, as they had ordered her. She then plunged a dagger into her heart, before they realized her fatal intention.

This action procured for her the name of Dido, a “heroine” or “valiant woman,” her previous name having been Elissa; though some authorities declare that Dido neither denotes the “heroine,” as Servius maintains; nor the “man-slayer,” as Eustathius pretends; nor the “wanderer,” as other writers claim; but the name Dido means nothing more than “the beloved,” whether the reference be to Baal or to her husband. The other appellation, Elissa, is said to mean “the exulting,” or “joyous one,” though Bochart claims that it signifies “the divine maiden.”

Her subjects after her death paid her divine honors.

Thus authorities differ as much over Dido’s name as accounts differ regarding her life. Virgil’s poetical version of the story deviates quite materially from the historical narrative of Justin; but as Virgil’s famous poem of the Æneid has obtained such world-wide fame, and gained a lasting place in classic literature, his story of Dido is too important to pass by unnoticed, and may be thus briefly narrated. According to Virgil’s account, Dido flourished about the time of the Trojan War, whereas historians place her 247 years later in history, or about 937 B.C.

Dunlop, in his History of Roman Literature, says: “Virgil wrote at such a distance of time from the events which formed the groundwork of his poem, and the events themselves were so obscure, that he could depart from history without violating probability. Thus it appears from chronology that Dido lived nearly three hundred years after the Trojan War; but the point was one of obscure antiquity, known perhaps to few readers, and not very precisely ascertained. Hence, so far was the violence offered to chronology from revolting his countrymen, that Ovid, who was so knowing in ancient histories and fables, wrote an heroic epistle as addressed by Dido to Æneas.”

The reason of Dido’s death is also differently stated by Virgil. But, notwithstanding these great and unreconcilable discrepancies, no one can fail to enjoy the charming story of Dido as related by the gifted poet.

Helen of Troy
Lord Leighton

By permission of Henry Graves & Co., Ltd.,
proprietors of the copyright.

After the fall of Troy, as narrated by the Greek poet Homer in the Iliad, the city was taken by the stratagem of the wooden horse. Priam, the old king of Troy, was slain by Pyrrhus, the son of Achilles; Paris, the son of Priam, having previously killed the great Achilles by the shot of an arrow in his heel, as Hector had prophesied at his death. After the death of Paris, Helen married Deiphobus, his brother, and at the taking of Troy betrayed him, in order to reconcile herself to Menelaüs, her first husband, who received her again into favor. Homer continues the story of Ulysses in the Odyssey, while Virgil, the Latin poet, takes up the history of Æneas after the fall of Troy, and gives account of his many adventures by land and sea. As our sketch has only to do with his visit to Carthage and his meeting with Queen Dido there, we must confine our narration to that part of the Æneid.

While the battle was still raging in the city of Troy, and the old King Priam was slain in his palace by the son of the great Achilles, Æneas, finding the fate of Troy was sealed, hastened to his own home, and taking his old father Anchises upon his shoulders, and leading his little son Ascanius by the hand, followed by his wife Creüsa, they fled from the city to the temple of Ceres, where they were to meet others, who should accompany them upon their wanderings. But as Æneas hastened to go, Creüsa, his wife, was severed from him. Leaving Anchises and his son with his comrades who had assembled at the temple of Ceres, Æneas fled back into the city, searching for his wife. But nowhere could he find her, and as he sought her, sorrowing, lo! as he called her name, her image seemed to stand before him; and thus her spirit addressed him:—

“Why art thou vainly troubled? The ruler of Olympus willeth not that Creüsa should bear thee company in thy journey. Weep not, then, for Creüsa, whom thou lovest, nor think that I shall be carried away to be a bond-slave to some Grecian woman. Such fate befits not a daughter of Dardanus, and daughter-in-law of Venus. The mighty Mother of the Gods keepeth me in this land to serve her. And now, farewell, and love the young Ascanius, even thy son and mine.” So saying, the spirit vanished from his sight, and Æneas, weeping, returned to his father and son and his comrades, now gathered at the temple of Ceres.

Then Æneas and his companions builded themselves ships, that they might sail over the seas, in obedience to the command of the gods, that they should seek another land; and when a year was wellnigh passed, the work was finished. Whereupon they sailed, taking their gods with them. We have not space to recount their experiences in Thrace, Delos, or Crete; or to tell the story of the dreadful Cyclopés; nor of the death and burial of old Anchises in Sicily. But scarcely had they sailed from the land of Sicily, when Juno beheld them. Most wrathful was her countenance as she looked down upon these hated Trojans; and she said to herself: “Shall these men of Troy always baffle my august will? Shall I, though wife to mighty Jupiter, avail nothing against these people? Behold, none shall pay me honor and sacrifice if mortals thus withstand the wishes of the Goddess of Olympus.” Thus musing in her heart, she betook herself to the land of Æolia, where King Æolus holdeth the winds within the mountains; and though they roar within the earth with furious mutterings, their king restraineth them according to his will. To him fair Juno spoke: “O Æolus, whom great Jupiter maketh king of the powerful winds, listen to my words. A nation whom I hold in no favor now saileth over the Tuscan seas. Loose now thy storms against them, so that their ships be buried in the deep; and behold, I will reward thee with the fairest maiden of all those lovely nymphs who around me wait my bidding.”

Then King Æolus answered:—

“O Queen of dread Olympus! ’tis thine to order what thou wilt, and mine to obey thine august commands. It was thy gracious gift which bestowed upon me this sovereignty, and by thy favor am I permitted a place at the table of the gods.”

Whereupon he unbarred the doors of the prison of the winds, which straightway rushed forth together in a mighty host, and rolled mountain high the waves of the sea. And thunders muttered, and lightnings flashed across the heavens. Then were Æneas and his companions in great fear, and they called upon the gods in terror. Some of their ships were sunk in the sea, others shattered by the winds. Then was King Neptune roused by the wild commotions which waged in his dominions, and being aware of the wiles of his sister-goddess, he called to the winds with commanding voice:—

“What is this, ye winds, that ye dare to trouble my dominions without my august summons? Begone, and tell your king that the sea is mine to rule, and bid him confine his power to his allotted rocks and caves.”

Then did King Neptune cross the sea in his chariot; and the rebellious waves sank back affrighted at the bidding of their mighty sovereign; and behold, the sea was calm and placid as the summer’s smile. And the gods of the sea drew the ships from the rocks, King Neptune lifting them with his ponderous trident. So Æneas and his companions, being sore wearied with the storm, made for the nearest land in haste, and thus they found a haven in a land, even Africa. Hither came Æneas with seven ships.

Glad indeed were the men of Troy to stand once more upon dry land. Meanwhile, Æneas climbed a cliff to look upon the land whither they had come, and see if haply he might behold his comrades’ ships, which, though he saw not, his labor was not in vain, for on the shore he noted three majestic stags, and, following, a goodly herd. Then did he let his arrows fly till seven of the animals were killed, which furnished ample food for the men upon his seven ships; which event greatly cheered their hearts; and thereupon they made a feast upon the shore, Æneas encouraging them with hopeful words of future peace and happiness.

Meanwhile upon these things great Jupiter looked down. And as he gazed, fair Venus, mother of Æneas, approached the mighty Jove with shining eyes bedimmed with tears. And thus she spoke: “O great Father, Ruler of all things! Didst thou not promise that my son Æneas and the men of Troy should rule o’er land and sea? Why art thou, then, turned back from thy purpose?” To whom Jove answered, whilst at the same moment he bent his awful head and kissed her brow, and his stern features calmed themselves like sunshine breaking through tempestuous clouds: “Fear not, my daughter! the fate of thy children changeth not. Thou shalt see this longed-for city which the Trojan race shall build, and thou shalt receive thy great-hearted Æneas safe on Mount Olympus.

“Æneas shall subdue the people of Italy, and build a city there, and shall reign three years; and after thirty years shall the boy Ascanius, who shall hereafter be called Iülus, change his throne from Lavinium to Alba, and for three hundred years shall Hector’s kindred rule therein. Then shall twin sons be born, whom a she-wolf shall suckle. The one of whom, even Romulus, shall build a mighty city in honor of Mars, and it shall be called Rome. Juno shall then repent her of her wrath, and join with me in favor of the men of Rome, and they shall bear rule even over Argos and Mycenæ.”

Having thus spoken, the mighty Jupiter called to his presence swift Mercury, who, donning winged sandals and golden helmet, flew shortly to Carthage, and as Jove commanded, turned the heart of Dido and her people to receive with favor these Trojan strangers thus cast upon their shores.

On the next day, Æneas, taking only Achates with him, went forth to view this new land whither they had come. And lo! Venus, his mother, met him in the midst of a thick wood. But the goddess veiled her heavenly features so that he knew her not, for she appeared habited as a Spartan maiden, after the fashion of a huntress.

Then first she spoke: “Have ye seen one of my sisters hereabouts? She is clothed in the skin of a spotted lynx, and girded with a quiver; or perchance she hunts a wild boar with horn and hound.” To whom Æneas answered, wondering at her imperial bearing which her disguise could not entirely conceal: “O Virgin! for what shall I indeed call thee; for surely neither thy mien nor voice betokens mortal woman. Methinks thou art in truth some goddess,—perchance sister of Phœbus, or haply some heavenly nymph. I have not seen thy sister; but I pray, forsooth, that thou wouldst tell us whither we have been driven, and who are the people amongst whom we find ourselves.”

And Venus replied: “It is indeed a Tyrian city that is near by, though the land be Libya. Dido is queen of this great city, having come hither from Tyre, flying from a wicked brother who had killed her husband in avaricious greed.

“This Dido was married to one Sichæus, richest among all the men of Phœnicia, and greatly beloved by his wife, whose brother Pygmalion held the throne of Tyre and thirsted for possession of the vast treasures of his brother-in-law, the priest of Hercules. And even at the altar he slew him, but hid the matter from Dido, hoping to get the coveted gold. But behold, the shade of Sichæus appeared to faithful Dido, showing his wounds by which he had been deprived of mortal life, and told her where he had hidden his treasures in the earth, bidding her secure them straightway and prepare for instant flight from Tyre and Pygmalion’s greed and cruelties.

“Then did Dido gather together many of the Tyrian nobles and men of skill, and with them she fled across the sea, and landed on this coast, where she has reared a mighty city, even brave Carthage; but from whence art thou, and whither do ye go?” To whom Æneas answered: “The long story of our wanderings would require many hours to relate. But suffice it, we are men of Troy, driven by storms to this Libyan shore. Men call me Prince Æneas, and my race is from Jupiter himself. We seek the land of Italy, for thither the gods have bidden us repair. With twenty ships did I set sail, but now scarce seven are left.”

Then Venus said with tender voice and mien of sympathy: “Surely thou art beloved of the gods, whoever thou art, brave stranger! Go show thyself to the queen, even fair Dido; and as for thy ships and thy companions, fear not. Behold yon flock of twenty snow-white swans flying through air. See, e’en though an eagle swoops down from the sky and puts them to confusion for a time, again they move in order and settle safely on the ground. If I have not learned augury in vain, thus shall thy ships come safely in the harbor.”

Then Venus turning, Æneas beheld a rosy light illumine her neck, and from her hair there came an odor sweet of heavenly ambrosia, and her garments grew into goddess-like vestments around her feet, ere she had vanished from the eyes of mortals. Then Æneas cried aloud: “O heavenly mother! why dost thou mock me with vain glimpses of thy much-loved form, nor suffer me to touch thy hand, nor grant me sight of thine immortal face?”

Then went Æneas and Achates towards the walls of the city, and Venus covered them with a thick mist, that thus no man should gaze on them, even though they might themselves behold all men and objects. And having mounted a hill o’erlooking the city, they marvelled much to behold its size and greatness. Some built the walls, rolling therefor great stones, while others reared the citadel, or marked the spot for houses. Others digged harbors or raised the walls of spacious theatres. Now in the midst of the city was a thickly wooded spot where Dido was erecting a noble temple in honor of Juno. Of bronze were gates and door-posts, and stately threshold with many steps thereunto.

And here Æneas wondered much to see painted upon the lofty walls the famous story of the fall of Troy. In order were the battles portrayed, and all the valiant Greeks and valorous Trojans were also there depicted; and Æneas knew himself, fighting amongst the Grecian chiefs.

Much was he moved thereat, and said with tears to Achates, his companion: “Is there any land which the story of our sorrows has not reached? Surely this fame shall profit us!” And lo! while Æneas marvelled at these things, Dido, most beautiful of women, fair as Diana, appeared amidst a throng of lovely maidens and bands of comely youths. Right nobly did she bear herself amongst her subjects, until she sat herself down on gorgeous throne in the gate of the temple, having armed heroes around her. There she dispensed justice, and apportioned to each his task in the building of her grand and stately city. Then suddenly Æneas beheld a company of men arrive with haste where Dido held her court, and quickly he perceived amongst them Antheus, and Cloanthus, and other men of Troy, from whom he had been parted by the storm. Then leave being given Ilioneus, one of them, to address Queen Dido regarding their presence there, he thus began: “O Queen! whom Jupiter permits to rear this spacious city, we are men of Troy whom storms have driven to your midst; we pray thee spare our ships from flames, and save a people serving the gods. There is a land called Italy, whither we journey, as the gods commanded. We had a king, Æneas, but we know not whether he be alive or buried in the sea.”

Then Dido answered: “Fear not, ye men of Troy! Know that I will give you help and protect you. If you will settle in this land, Trojans and Tyrians shall be equal in my sight. Would that your king were here! But I will send messengers throughout this land to seek him, lest haply he be cast upon the shore.”

Then were Æneas and Achates glad to hear this welcome of the fair Queen Dido; and they would fain have shown themselves, but the mist restrained them. But lo! the cloud parted forthwith, and Æneas stood before the queen, with face and breast as of a god; for so his mother had clothed him, and cast about him a purple light, through which he shone with all the beauties of youth. Then spake he to Queen Dido:—

“Lo! I am he you ask for, even Æneas of Troy. So long as the rivers run to the seas, and the shadows fall on the hollows of the hills, so long shall thy name and glory last for this thy kindness to poor strangers cast upon thy shores.”

Then Dido, after a time of silent meditation, graciously replied: “I too have wandered far, even as you, and having suffered much, have learnt to succor them that suffer. Even from the day my father Belus conquered Cyprus have I known the wondrous tale of Troy. Come ye, therefore, to my palace.”

So saying, she led Æneas to her stately palace, sending meanwhile most bountiful provision to his companions in the ships,—even twenty oxen, a hundred swine, and a hundred sheep and lambs. Then in her royal palace a sumptuous feast was spread. The tables were weighted with gold and silver vessels and cups of marvellous workmanship, whereon were engraved great deeds of valor. The rooms were adorned with luxurious couches draped with costly purple, embroidered with cunning skill; while fair Dido was herself most radiant in resplendent robes of shining tissues sparkling with priceless gems.

Then did Æneas send Achates in haste to the ships, that he might bring the young Ascanius to the feast. Also Æneas ordered that the boy should be laden with rare and costly gifts, of such things as they had saved from the ruins of Troy, that they might be presented to fair Dido as a grateful offering for her most courteous reception of himself and followers.

Among these gifts there was a mantle of golden tissue and a veil bordered with yellow acanthus: this had fair Helen brought from her Grecian home, and which her mother Leda had lovingly bestowed. There was a sceptre likewise, having belonged to Ilione, eldest daughter of King Priam; also a necklace of pearls, and a double crown of gold encrusted with dazzling jewels. But ere the boy Ascanius departed from the ships bearing these gifts, Venus contrived a cunning scheme to guard her son Æneas from any coming treachery from the men of Tyre; for Venus pondered well on Juno’s hatred of her son and many wiles. So fair Venus called to her aid her bright son Cupid, even the lovely wingéd boy known as the god of Love. To him she thus unfolded her well-laid plan:—

“Most beautiful and powerful Cupid! my best-beloved son, who laughest at the dreadful thunders of the mighty Jupiter, and canst even defy the wiles of wrathful Juno, thy aid I seek in guarding Æneas from her treacherous devices. To-day Queen Dido entertains thy brother Æneas in her palace, and showeth him courteous favor; but evil may betide unless her heart is fixed in continued liking for him. List thou, and do my bidding! His son Ascanius even now cometh from the ships, laden with rich gifts for the Carthaginian queen. I would that thou shouldst assume his dress and features and mode of speech and gait; bear thyself these presents to fair Dido, while I, meanwhile, will snatch the boy Ascanius away in a cloud, and bear him to Cythera or Idalium, and hide him there in heavy slumbers, resting on bed of sleep-producing flowers and fanned with gentle zephyrs. Do thou, meanwhile, go to the palace as Ascanius, and when Dido welcomes thee with kiss and fond embrace, breathe into her heart a fire of love, so that she shall forget the grave of Sichæus, and turn her thoughts and glances upon the handsome countenance of Æneas.”

Thus did it come to pass. Ascanius slept in the cool and shady woods of Idalium, lulled by sweet-smelling flowers, and Cupid in the guise of Æneas’s son did bear the costly gifts to the fair queen, which graciously she received with tender welcome and loving embraces of the beautiful boy, who, after greeting Æneas as his father, betook himself to the side of the gentle Dido; and as she toyed with his shining locks of golden hair or pressed fond kiss upon his brow, the wily Cupid did forthwith ensnare her heart; and though he had left wings and darts behind when he put off his godlike mien, his bright eyes sent arrows of fire to her heart, and his childish clasp around her neck did thrill her being. But ’twas of the brave Æneas that she thought, and petted the pretty boy for his supposed father’s sake. Much the Tyrians marvelled at the costly gifts of Prince Æneas, and more they wondered at his beautiful boy, the false Ascanius; and Dido could not satisfy her eyes with looking on this lovely vision of youthful beauty; and little wot she of the trouble that same winning child was preparing for her in the days to come.

Most sumptuous was the feast. Then the queen called for a huge cup of gold, encrusted with gems, from which King Belus, her illustrious father, often drank in his days of power; and having filled it with the sparkling wine, she cried: “Great Jupiter, thou god of feasts and mightiest of all the immortals at the table of the gods, grant joy this day to men of Troy and men of Tyre, and may our friendship endure to future generations.” And having touched the foaming goblet to her lips, she handed it to the highest princes of the realm, and each in order drank. Then did the minstrel Iopas, famed for striking wondrous music from the harp, give charming entertainment to the guests, singing of sun and moon and stars; of Arcturus and Hyades, and why the winter sun hastens to dip his shining head in ocean, and why the winter nights are long and dreary; and also of men and beasts he sang; of valiant deeds and adventures of the chase. Then Queen Dido asked Æneas much of Troy and the wondrous story of its direful fall; nor was she satisfied until he had recounted all things that had befallen him, both during that famous contest and since, even till he landed on her shores. And many days were spent in telling this most fascinating tale; for still again each day the queen begged he would renew the marvellous account of heroes slain or battles won. Much was Queen Dido moved in spirit by this story, and still with greater favor did she esteem the teller of this wondrous tale, and scarce could sleep for thinking of him.

Then thus she spake to her sister Anna: “O my sister, I have been greatly troubled this night with evil dreams. Who can be this wondrous stranger who hath come to our coasts? Surely his noble mien and brave valor betokens that he is one of the sons of the gods! Were I not steadfastly purposed that I would not yoke myself again in marriage, to this man only might I yield.”

Then Anna answered: “Why wilt thou waste thy youth in useless sorrow for the dead? Think also of the dangers which surround thy throne, and to what greatness may the strength of Carthage grow through such alliance. Seek counsel of the gods, who, methinks, direct thy heart.”

Thus did her sister offer comforting advice, the which, forsooth, fair Dido was not loath to take.

Then was a royal hunt prepared. The princes of Carthage waited for their queen at the palace door, where her proud steed stood champing his golden bit, caparisoned with royal trappings of gold and purple. Beauteous indeed was fair Dido, as she appeared adorned with Sidonian mantle with embroideries of divers colors. Her quiver was of gold, and of the same the rich clasp of her mantle, while her hair was caught in knot of gold. Æneas came to meet her, beautiful as Apollo himself; and forth the hunters went with goodly escort, and coming to the hills, found many goats and stags, which they chased; Ascanius scorning such easy hunting, wishing for wild boar or lion for his prey.

Then did a terrible storm arise; and seeking shelter, the guests were separated from one another, and the Tyrian princes also lost sight of their queen. By order of the gods, fair Dido and brave Æneas fled both to the same sheltering cave. Here was their troth plighted; and when the nuptial knot was tied by Hymen, god of marriage, straightway the goddess Rumor reported this event throughout all Libya, how that fair Dido was wedded to Æneas of Troy. Then was Iarbas, her former suitor, very wroth, and vowed swift vengeance, and made haste to the temple of Jupiter and spread his grief before the great ruler of Olympus. Whereupon great Jove despatched swift-footed Mercury to Æneas with this message:—

“Thus saith the king of gods and men: Is this what thy mother promised of thee, twice saving thee from the spear of the Greeks? Art thou he that shall rule Italy, and its mighty men of war, and spread thy dominions to the end of the world? What doest thou here? Why lookest thou not to Italy? Depart, and tarry not.”

This message swift Mercury brought to Æneas, where he stood, with yellow jasper in his sword-hilt, and wrapped in cloak of purple, gold embroidered—Queen Dido’s gifts. Having delivered the commands of mighty Jupiter to the trembling Trojan hero, the god Mercury vanished, and Æneas was left with troubled thoughts to ponder on these weighty words. At last he joined his companions, having resolved to fly from alluring Carthage; and he bid them secretly prepare their fleet for sailing. Meanwhile he sought some fitting opportunity to take a last farewell of the beautiful queen, who by her loving devotion made his going grievous.

But Dido, with jealous love, which is most keen of sight, divined his purpose ere he had revealed it to her; and quickly seeking Æneas, she exclaimed in mingled love and anger: “Thoughtest thou to hide thy purpose and to depart in silence from this land? Carest thou not for her whom thou leavest to die? And hast thou no fear of winter storms upon the sea? Repent thee of this cruel resolve.”

But Æneas, fearing the words of Jupiter, stood with averted eyes and looks which relented not. At last he spake:—

“I deny not, O Queen, the benefits thou hast done to me, nor while I live shall I forget Dido. But the gods command that I should seek Italy. Thou hast thy Carthage; why dost thou grudge Italy to us? Nor may I tarry. Even now the messenger of Jupiter came to me and bade me depart.”

Then was Queen Dido very wroth; and her eyes blazed with jealous love and anger, which waged within her heart a mighty contest. At last she cried: “As for thee, I keep thee not. Go, seek thy Italy across the seas; only if there is any vengeance in heaven, thou wilt pay the penalty for this wrong. Then wilt thou call on Dido in vain. Ay, and wherever thou shalt go, I will haunt thee, and rejoice in the dwellings below to hear thy doom.”

Having said which, the afflicted queen hasted to depart to her palace. But her grief o’ercame her powerful spirit, so that she fell like to one dead, and was laid by her maidens upon her bed.

Though Æneas would fain comfort the sorrowing queen, the word of Jove o’ermastered his inclination, so that he hasted to his ships and speedily prepared for flight. But when the spirit returned to fainting Dido, she cried out in heart, and bade her sister note the treacherous Trojans who thus so poorly repaid her generous treatment. And Dido sought once more to move the mind of Æneas, even sending Anna to him to beg that if he must depart indeed, he yet would stay his going for a space of time. But stern Æneas relented not; whereupon fair Dido grew weary of her life, and as she offered sacrifice she perceived many ill omens of coming woe. Then she bethought herself of a plan to avenge her heart, though it should cost her life. But she hid the matter from her sister, and said to her that a noted prophetess had declared there was a remedy which should bring her Trojan hero back or free her of him.

Thus she deceived her trusting sister, who little imagined her direful purpose. And Queen Dido bade her sister build a funeral pile—for so the priestess had commanded—and put thereon the sword which Æneas had left behind; also the garments he wore, and the couch on which he lay, even all that was his, that they might perish together. Also an image of Æneas was laid upon the pile, and the priestess, with hair unbound, sprinkled thereon water, said to be drawn from the lake of Avernus, while she scattered evil herbs that had been cut at the full moon with a sickle of bronze. Dido herself, meanwhile, with loosened garments and bare feet, threw meal upon the fire, and called upon the gods for vengeance. Thus did the queen hide her dread purpose ’neath spell of witchery and sacrifice to the gods.

In the meantime, Æneas lay asleep in his ship, and in a dream again Mercury appeared and warned him of Dido, telling him to fly and tarry not.

Æneas, waking in great fear, called his companions, and they straightway loosed the sails and sped o’er the sea.

And in the morning, lo! Dido, from her watch-tower, perceived the Trojan fleet had fled. Then did she smite upon her breast, and tore her hair in anguish. But still she kept her real intent from all around her; and calling to old Barcé, who had been nurse to Sichæus, she did dissemble her great grief, and bade her call her sister Anna, that she might now prepare the sacrifice; and Dido also bade old Barcé to bind a garland round her head, for she was now minded to finish the sacrifice, and to burn the image of the man of Troy. Then when the old woman hasted to do her bidding, Dido herself ran to the funeral pile, made for the burning, and drew the sword of Æneas from the scabbard, and having mounted the pile, she threw herself upon Æneas’s couch, and wept and kissed his image, and cried: “Shall I die unavenged? Nevertheless, let me die. The man of Troy shall see this fire from the sea, whereon he journeys, and carry with him an augury of death.”

And when her sister and her maidens, coming in haste, looked upon the pile, lo! she had fallen upon the sword, and the blood was upon her hands. Then a great cry arose throughout the palace, and Anna, rushing through the midst, called upon her name: “O my sister, was this thy purpose? Were the pile and the sword and the fire for this?” Then she climbed upon the pile and took her sister in her arms and sought to stanch the flowing blood. Three times did Dido strive to raise her eyes; three times did her spirit leave her. Then Juno, looking down from heaven and perceiving that her pain was long, in pity sent down Iris, her messenger, that she might loose the soul that struggled to be free. For, seeing that she died not by nature, nor yet by the hand of man, but before her time and by her own madness. Queen Proserpine had not shred the ringlet from her head which she shreds from them who die. Wherefore, Iris, flying down with dewy wings from heaven, with a thousand colors about her from the light of the sun, stood above her head and said, “I give thee to death, even as I am bidden, and loose thee from thy body.” Then she shred the lock, and Queen Dido yielded up her mortal spirit.

Once more Æneas met Queen Dido when he was permitted by the gods to descend into the land of shadows, where dwelt the shades of the dead.

When Æneas and the Sibyl, who conducted him thither, came to the river Styx, then was the Boatman Charon persuaded to ferry them over, for the Sibyl showed him the marvellous bough of gold, a gift intended for the Queen of Hades; and the huge, terrible watch-dog Cerberus, which guards the portals to the Land of Shadows, was tamed by eating of the cake the Sibyl gave, made of honey and poppy-seed, causing sleep.

Thus did they come within the Mourning Fields, where dwell the souls of those who have died of love. Among these shades was Dido, fresh from the wound wherewith she slew herself. And when Æneas saw her darkly through the shadows, he wept and cried: “O Dido! it was truth, then, that they told me,—that thou hadst slain thyself with the sword? Loath was I, O Queen,—I swear it,—to leave thy land. But the gods constrained me; nor did I think that thou wouldst take such sorrow from my departure. But stay! depart not; for never again may I speak to thee, but this time only.”

But Dido cast her eyes upon the ground, and her heart was hard against him, even as a rock. His tears and groans and sighs and friendly words moved not her spirit, nor could appease her wrath. Silent and scornful she departed to the grove that was hard by, where dwelt her first husband, Sichæus, who gave her love, even as he was loved by her.

Thus was the love of Dido, which Æneas had slighted, avenged. And herewith endeth the poet’s story of the famous Queen Dido, in which he telleth of her fame and beauty and unhappy love and direful death.

CLEOPATRA.
69-30 B.C.

“She moves a goddess and she looks a queen.”

Pope’s Homer’s Iliad.

“Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale

Her infinite variety.”—Shakespeare.

THE river shone like burnished silver, resplendent in the rays of the midday sun, as Osiris drove his shining chariot of day across high heaven’s arch. The city lay along its banks in calm repose and beauty. Its palaces and villas were shaded with palms and groves of olives and clusters of stately pomegranate-trees, while flowers and fountains adorned its many stately avenues.

In his costly palace the great Roman Triumvir gave public audience to some important tribunal of state.

But now, above the noise of city sounds, arose the strains of distant music. So faint and yet so sweet it was wafted on the air, that all who heard must needs, perforce, be led to seek its source, as though directed by some secret spell which could not be resisted. The notes seemed floating o’er the river’s shining waves; and all the people crowded on its banks, with wistful curiosity, striving to catch the first glimpse of the mysterious cause of such unwonted melody.

Then flashes, with sudden glory, before their eyes a wondrous sight, which holds them spellbound in o’erwhelming admiration. From round a curve in the undulating bank, glides swiftly before their vision a gorgeous barge, the poop of which was beaten gold. The silken sails were royal purple, embroidered with silver lotus-blossoms; and as they swelled in the light breeze, a fragrance floated from their perfumed folds so exquisitely delicious, that the winds seemed love-sick with their odorous sweetness. The silver oars, gleaming in the sunshine, kept stroke with tune of flutes and lyres and cymbals; and the limpid water, parted by their glistening blades, followed each stroke with amorous touch and sweet caressing, as though loath to break away in rainbow-tinted showers of shining drops.

But how describe the matchless vision of womanly and goddess-like perfection which entranced the eyes of all beholders, as the gorgeous barge drew nearer to the city, moving with stately gliding motion, harmonious with the ear-enchanting melodies played by seeming sirens, nymphs, and mermaids, on silver lutes and jewelled flutes and shining cymbals.

Under a pavilion of cloth of gold and priceless tissues, upon a couch, gorgeous with costliest draperies, in picturesque repose, yet studied attitude of queenliest grace and goddess-like abandon, appeared a form and face most radiantly fair and bountifully beautiful; though orientally voluptuous yet exquisitely attractive; seemingly divine, like some heavenly goddess; and yet, in truth, so like a human woman, with warm, soft flesh and tender eyes, and deep, rich heart’s blood thrilling through every vein, e’en to the end of her fair, tapering finger-tips. This radiant being was attired as Venus, Goddess of Beauty; and around her stood young pretty boys, decked out as Cupids, rosy-tinted, and with soft white wings expanded; and they gently fanned her glowing cheeks with feathers, odorous with most intoxicating perfumes; while lovely maidens, costumed as mermaids, plied the silver oars in unison with the notes struck from the lyres of gayly decorated nymphs; while charming muses and bewitching graces with rosy lips caressed the silver flutes, or clasped with jewelled fingers the golden cymbals.

It was indeed a vision of enchantment. Whence came these radiant beings? Had the great goddess, in truth, descended from high Olympus, attended by her heavenly train? or did fair Isis, the queen of Egypt,—worshipped both as deity and nature,—thus clothe herself with mortal likeness, and deign to become visible to mortal eyes?

Thus questioned the people, and pondered of the meaning of this o’erwhelming scene of gorgeous majesty and irresistible loveliness, according as their beliefs partook of Grecian mythology or Egyptian lore.

Such was the scene of Cleopatra’s sail in her magnificent barge, up the river Cydnus to the city of Tarsus. That we may understand more clearly the life of this famous queen, we must turn back the pages of Egyptian history. Nor can we stop there. To clearly define her origin, the fair land of Greece must also be visited; and the gorgeous pageants of Rome, at the time of her greatest glory, have a place in the story of this illustrious Queen of Egypt, Daughter of Greece, Magic Sorceress of the Nile.

Would that we could think of the fascinating Cleopatra only as this vision of perfect loveliness which she presents in this enchanting scene upon the river Cydnus; but there are dark and bloody deeds and savage barbarities and revolting vices, which loom up in the background of this fair picture, with huge and horrid forms, and make the telling of Cleopatra’s story, fascinating as it is in some respects, often an unpleasant recital of vice and crime, even though we endeavor to touch these dark shadows ever so lightly. For as we write of history, not of fiction, we cannot always avoid these hideous facts.

Why is Cleopatra so fair of skin, though an Egyptian by birth? Her attendant maidens on this fairy-like barge stand round her like dusky figures cut from bronze; but her fair face and limbs gleam with pale ivory-tints, and the sunshine even glimmers in her dark tresses, now coiled in the Grecian knot behind her shell-like ears.

Though Egypt was her birthplace, Grecian blood flows through her veins, and whitens her skin, and lightens the dusky shadows in her hair, and gives the brown shadings to her lustrous eyes; and Grecian culture gives her voice its oft-narrated magic charm of melting sweetness; and a spark of Grecian genius quickens her powers of mind, and gives her the enchanting fascination of brilliant wit, and a native aptitude of acquiring knowledge, and all the polite arts and sciences; and her Grecian free-born grace lends to her form its perfect pose of queenly stateliness, together with an irresistible charm in every easy motion of rounded limb, and unstudied naturalness of action. The agile litheness of the Greek is combined with the oriental voluptuous indolence of the Egyptian; which combination explains the otherwise unaccountable, weird, and subtle allurements of face and form which history, romance, and poetry have acceded to her. Shakespeare calls her “the serpent of old Nile,” “this great fairy,” “great Egypt”; and Horace gives to her the name of “fatal prodigy.” Leigh Hunt describes her as

“. . . That southern beam,

The laughing queen that caught the world’s great hands.”

Another writer says of her: “She was born a princess, reigned a queen, won an emperor, swayed a hero, and defeated a conqueror. We think of her as the queen of enslavers more than as queen of Egypt. Cleopatra is enthroned enchantress of the world. She, of all her sex, in her person, gave to the unworthy art of coquetry a something magnificent and lustrous in its so potent exercise. Hers was the poetry of coquetry.”

Even the scene of Cleopatra in her gorgeous barge upon the river Cydnus does not give a complete picture of this wonderful story. In the background we must paint the Mediterranean Sea, which she has crossed in her journey thither; and then beyond looms up the city of Alexandria, on the further side; and by it flows the marvellous river Nile, through the fertile valley irrigated yearly by its overflowing waters; and high in the background, towering over all else in the picture, stand the majestic pyramids, like huge sentinels, guarding the unknown secrets of Egypt’s wondrous history.

Yes, to rightly comprehend the significance of the life of the famous Cleopatra, a panorama of changing scenes, covering centuries of time, would be needed. But we can only take a bird’s-eye view of those old lands of weird and endless enchantment.

“Cleopatra was by birth an Egyptian; by ancestry and descent she was a Greek. Thus, while Alexandria and the delta of the Nile formed the scene of the most important events and incidents of her history, it was the blood of Macedon which flowed in her veins. Her character and action are marked by the genius, the courage, the originality, and the impulsiveness pertaining to the stock from which she sprang. The events of her history, on the other hand, and the peculiar character of her adventures, her sufferings, and her sins, were determined by the circumstances by which she was surrounded, and the influences which were brought to bear upon her, in the soft and voluptuous clime where the scenes of her early life were laid.”

Let us look for one moment at Egypt as a country, and then take a passing glance at the peculiar characteristics and customs of that ancient people.

Egypt is situated in the midst of the most extensive and remarkable rainless district in the world. The Red Sea divides this tract, and the eastern portion forms the Arabian desert, while the western African tract has received the name of Sahara. Through the African desert flows the Nile; rising in the region of the Mountains of the Moon, and flowing northward, it empties into the Mediterranean Sea. These mountains, being near the equator, are subject to vast and continued torrents of rain in certain seasons of the year. The river created by these streams is the Nile, which at times expands over the entire valley, forming an immense lake, five to ten miles wide and a thousand miles long. The rains in the mountains gradually cease, but it requires months for the water to subside and leave the valley dry. As soon as the water disappears, a rank and luxurious vegetation springs up from the entire surface of the earth which has been submerged. This most extraordinary valley seems specially preserved by nature for man. The yearly inundation prevents impassable forests, and also the presence of wild beasts. Egypt being thus wholly shut in by deserts on every side, by land, and shoals, and sandbars, making the approach difficult by sea, remained for many ages under the rule of its ancient kings. The people were peaceful and industrious, and its scholars were famed throughout the world for their learning, science, and philosophy.

It was during this period of isolation that the famous pyramids were built, and the huge monoliths were carved, and the silent Sphinx was reared, and those vast temples constructed whose ruined columns are now the wonder of mankind.

As Egypt was always fertile, when famine existed elsewhere, corn would be plentiful there. Thus neighboring tribes from Arabia, Palestine, and Syria, when driven by want and starvation, crossed the barren deserts on the eastern side, and found this fertile and marvellous country, already old in learning and the arts, and a certain kind of civilization far superior to their neighbors.

At length the Persian monarchs conquered the country. About two hundred and seventy years before the time of Cleopatra, Alexander the Great, in his wars with Darius, had taken possession of Egypt; and at his death, in the division of his empire amongst his generals, Egypt fell to the share of one of them named Ptolemy. This was the commencement of the dynasty of the Ptolemies, who were Greek princes, reigning over this Egyptian empire, formerly governed by a long line of native kings, reaching back in history to the year 3000 B.C., and including the famous lines of Cheops, Thotmosis, Rameses, and others, known under the general name of the Pharaohs.

We cannot give any particulars of these reigns in this sketch, and will only mention some of the customs of the ancient Egyptians previous to the time of Cleopatra.

Egypt contained about five millions of people, who were divided into various castes. Plato tells us that in Egypt not only were the priests, the soldiers, and artisans habitually separated, but that every particular trade and manufacture was carried on by its own craftsmen, who handed down the trade from father to son.

The entire cultivated land of Egypt was about twelve millions of acres. The clothing of the Egyptians consisted mostly of linen, made from the flax which grew abundantly in the delta of the Nile. Wool was but little employed, as the soil was not fitted for grazing sheep. Cotton was first mentioned in the reign of Amasis, about 566 B.C. It was also this Amasis who allowed his wife, the Egyptian queen, to receive the large income from the royal fishery at the flood-gates to the lake of Moeris, to meet the expenses of her toilet; and a century later the reigning monarch added the taxes of the city of Anthylla to the former income to keep his queen in sandal-strings; the sum obtained from the fisheries being a talent a day, or upwards of 70,700 pounds a year: and when this formed only a portion of the pin-money of the Egyptian queens, to whom the revenues of the city of Anthylla, famous for its wines, were also given, it will be seen that the Egyptian kings were at least very generous to their wives in this respect, even though they were not very particular about cutting off their heads or giving them a cup of poison if they failed to please their royal lords.

Although wool and cotton were sometimes employed as articles of clothing, the preference was given to linen. Herodotus mentions some Egyptian dresses of linen, bordered with a fringe, over which was worn a cloak of white wool, similar to the bornouse worn at the present day in Egypt and Barbary.

The dresses of the priests and persons of rank consisted of an under-garment in the form of an apron, and a loose upper-robe with full sleeves, secured by a girdle around the waist; or of an apron, and a shirt with short, tight sleeves, over which was thrown a loose robe, leaving the right arm exposed. Princes wore a dress very like that of the priests; but their distinguishing mark was a peculiar badge, at the side of the head, descending to the shoulder, and frequently adorned with golden fringe.

This ornament contained the lock of hair indicative of youth; for though the Egyptians shaved their heads and wore wigs, certain locks of hair were left upon the heads of children.

Therefore this badge was always attached to the head-dress worn by princes as an emblem of their rank, as they were not supposed to have arrived at kinghood during the life of their father, on the same principle that a Spanish prince is styled an infant.

The robes of a sovereign varied according to his present occupation. As all the kings were also priests, when they were engaged in the office of high-priest their garments resembled those worn by the sacerdotal order, with the exception of the apron and head-dress, which were of peculiar form, and belonged exclusively to the rank of king. This apron was richly ornamented in front with lions’ heads and other devices, and bordered with rows of asps, which were the emblems of royalty. After the union of Lower and Upper Egypt the sovereign wore a double crown. Egyptian men always shaved the entire head, and wore wigs, both within the house and out of doors. The women, however, wore their own hair, and were not shaved even in times of mourning or after death. Ladies wore their hair long and plaited in a great number of braids. The hair was plaited in the triple plait, the ends being left loose. Around the head was bound an ornamental fillet, with a lotus-bud falling over the forehead. The ear-rings worn by Egyptian ladies were large, round, single hoops of gold, sometimes over two inches in diameter, or made of six rings soldered together. Often an asp, whose body was of gold set with precious stones, was worn by persons of rank. Some few were of silver. Women wore many rings, sometimes three and four upon the same finger, and even the thumb was decorated with a single ring. Rings were ornamented with the scarabæus, or sacred beetle, or an engraved stone. They were occasionally in the form of a knot, or snail, or snake. Two cats, with an emblem of the goddess Athor between them, seems to have been a favorite device for rings. Egyptians also wore large gold anklets, or bangles, armlets, and bracelets, frequently inlaid with precious stones. Richly ornamented necklaces were a principal part of the dress of both men and women.

Great attention was paid by ladies and men of rank to the beauty of their sandals, which were sometimes richly ornamented. Shoes were also common in Egypt, many of them having been found at Thebes. But they are supposed to have been of late date, and belonged to the Greeks. The dresses of the women consisted of a loose robe or shirt, reaching to the ankles, fastened round the neck with a string, over which they wore a petticoat, secured at the waist by a girdle. This petticoat or gown, among ladies of rank, was made of richly colored stuff in a great variety of patterns. The most elegant of these figured materials were reserved for the robes of the deities and queens. Slaves and servants were not allowed to wear the same costumes as ladies, and their mode of dressing the hair was also different.

Egyptian ladies seem to have been given to the little tricks and arts of the toilet as well as more modern beauties. Of the various articles of the toilet found among the ancient remains, the principal are bottles, or vases, for holding ointment, and the kohl, or paint for the eyes; also mirrors, combs, and small boxes, spoons, and saucers. The custom of anointing the body is usual in hot climates, and contributes greatly to comfort. Their chief care was bestowed upon the anointing of the hair. The Egyptian combs were usually of wood, and double, and frequently carved and ornamented. The custom of staining the eyelids and brows with a moistened powder of a black color was of the most ancient date. It was thought to increase the beauty of the appearance of the eye, by making it seem larger by this external black ring around it. Many of these kohl-bottles have been found in the tombs, together with the bodkin employed in applying the black cosmetic.

Some of these bottles are ornamented with the figure of an ape, or monster, supposed to assist in holding the bottle between his arms while the fair beauty dipped her dainty bodkin into the much-prized beautifier. Pins and needles have also been found among the articles of the toilet. Some of these pins are of gold, and similar in size to those now employed by ladies as hat-pins and fancy hair-pins. Metal mirrors are also found richly ornamented and highly polished. It will be remembered that the brazen laver made by Moses for the tabernacle was formed of the “looking-glasses of the women,” who doubtless brought them from Egypt at the time of the exodus of the Israelites. The Egyptian dandies were also not without the highly prized canes. Many of these have been found at Thebes; some having a carved lotus-blossom for the head. It was customary, on entering a house, to leave their canes or sticks in the hall or at the door; and poor men were often employed to hold the canes of guests during a party, by the master of the house, who rewarded them with money or food. We have little knowledge of the nature of their baths; but as they were forbidden in deep mourning to indulge in them, they were probably considered a luxury as well as a necessity. The priests were remarkable for their love of cleanliness, shaving the whole body every three days, and bathing twice every day and twice during the night. So great an abhorrence did an Egyptian feel for an unshaven person, that Herodotus says, “No Egyptian of either sex would on any account kiss the lips of a Greek, make use of his knife, his spit and cauldron, or taste the meat of an animal which had been slaughtered by his hand.”

This shaving of the head among the Egyptians is given as a reason by Herodotus for the remarkable hardness of the Egyptian sculls, as compared with those of other people. The most singular custom of the Egyptians was that of tying a false beard upon the chin, which was plaited and shaped according to the rank of the person. The beards on the figures of the gods were distinguished by the turning up of the ends. No man ventured to assume the beard of a deity. But after death, kings were accorded the honor of having their statues thus distinguished.

The art of painting common boards to imitate costly varieties, now so often employed, was practised by the ancient Egyptians. Boxes, chairs, tables, sofas, and other pieces of furniture were frequently made of ebony inlaid with ivory, and articles of sycamore and acacia were ornamented with rare woods.

The Egyptians displayed much taste in their gold, silver, porcelain, and glass vases. Glass was known from the earliest times, and glass-blowing was employed by them twenty-five hundred years ago. It is also stated that their dead were sometimes enclosed in glass coffins, or a crystal sarcophagus was made by covering the granite with a coating of vitrified matter, usually of a deep green color, which by its transparency allowed the hieroglyphics engraved upon the stone beneath to be plainly visible.

Emeralds, rubies, amethysts, and other expensive gems were most successfully imitated by the jewellers of Thebes. Pliny states that glass-cutting was known to the ancients, and that the diamond was employed for that purpose, as at present, even if they were ignorant of the art of cutting the diamond itself with its own dust. “Diamonds,” says Pliny, “are eagerly sought by lapidaries who set them in iron handles, for they have the power of penetrating anything, however hard it may be.”

The art of embroidery was commonly practised in Egypt, and gold and silver threads were used for this purpose. The loom was also employed by them, both in weaving linen, cotton, and wool, and also for the production of very rich stuffs, in which various colors were worked in innumerable patterns by the loom.

The Egyptians were also famed for their manufacture of paper, which was in the form of parchments made from the plant papyrus, which grew in the marshy regions of the Nile in great profusion. Leather was also prepared by them with great skill for various purposes, and the knife employed by them in the process, between three and four thousand years ago, is precisely similar to that used by modern curriers. Fullers, potters, carpenters, and cabinet-makers formed a large class of Egyptian workmen. The Egyptians were skilled in the working of metals; and gold, silver, brass, tin, iron, and lead were known in those days.

The art of embalming the dead was practised by the Egyptians with a perfection never since equalled.

Egyptian paintings were very primitive, and their sculptures were more remarkable for huge grotesqueness than any perfection of art, as their artists were limited to such a conventional mode of drawing. After the accession of the Ptolemies, Greek art became well known in Egypt, but their artists still continued to adhere to the Egyptian models prescribed.

The Egyptians appear to have possessed some secret for hardening or tempering bronze, with which we are totally ignorant; for the wonderful skill with which they engraved their granite obelisks with hieroglyphics, for which purpose they used implements of bronze, cannot be equalled by any process in modern times.

The walls and ceilings of the houses of the Egyptians of high rank were richly painted, as well as their tombs. The ceilings were laid out in compartments, each having peculiar pattern and border. The favorite forms were the lotus, the square, the diamond, and the succession of scrolls.

The mode of laying out the house and grounds varied according to the means of the owner. Some villas were of considerable extent, with large gardens surrounding them. Some of the large mansions were ornamented with obelisks, like the temples. About the centre of the outer wall was the main entrance leading to an open walk shaded by rows of trees. Here were large tanks of water, and between them a wide avenue led to the centre of the mansion. Their gardens were well tended, particularly their vineyards.

Monkeys were trained to assist in gathering the fruit of the sycamore and other trees.

Many animals were tamed in Egypt for various purposes, as the lion, leopard, gazelle, baboon, crocodile, and others.

Among the fruit-trees cultivated by the Egyptians were the palm, date, dôm-nut tree, sycamore, fig, pomegranate, olive, peach, almond, persea, locust tree, and others. The Egyptians were exceedingly fond of flowers, and they were profusely employed on all festive occasions. The lotus was the favorite flower, and was more often preferred for house decoration and personal adornment. Among other flowers cultivated by them were the chrysanthemum, acinon, acacia, anemone, convolvulus, olive, amaricus, and others.

The deity whom they believed presided over the garden, was Khem, corresponding to the Grecian Pan. Ranno, a goddess sometimes represented in the form of an asp, or with a human body and the head of a serpent, was considered the protecting genius of a vineyard, and also of a young prince.

This goddess Ranno, or the sacred asp, appears in many remarkable connections with royalty, and the name Uræus, which was applied to that snake, has been derived by Champollion, from ouro, the Coptic word signifying “king,” as its appellation of basilisk originated in the basiliscos of the Greeks.

Ancient Egypt was a religious community in which the palace was a temple, the people worshippers at the gate, and the monarch the chief priest. “The equal treatment which the women received in Egypt was shown in other circumstances beside their being allowed to sit on the throne. In their mythology, the goddess Isis held rank above her husband. We see also on the mummy-cases that the priestly and noble families traced their pedigree as often through the female line as through the male, and records were sometimes dated by the names of priestesses.”

The Egyptians worshipped many gods. Among them were Ra, the “sun-god,” sailing in a golden boat across the heavens; Shu, meaning “air”; Tafnut, the “dew”; Seb, the “earth”; and Nut, the “heaven.” Osiris was the “sun,” and Isis, his wife and sister, the “dawn”; Horus, the “rising sun”; Set, the destroyer of Osiris, was the “darkness”; and the resurrection of Osiris was the rising of the sun after the darkness of the night had been overcome and dispelled. Nepthys was the “sunset”; Anubis, the “twilight” or “dusk.” Neith corresponded to the Greek Athêné, and was supposed to be a personification of the wisdom or intellect of God,—which is a significant thought, Neith being a goddess, not a god. She was the Egyptian goddess of Saïs. Originally the worship of Ammon was distinct from that of Ra, god of the sun; but after the eighteenth dynasty a union took place, and he was worshipped as Ammon-Ra. Thoth, the god of letters, had various characters, according to the functions he was supposed to fulfil. In one of his characters he corresponded to the moon; in the other, to Mercury. “In the former, he was the beneficent property of that luminary, the regulator and dispenser of time, who presided over the fate of man and the events of his life; in the latter, the god of letters and the patron of learning and the means of communication between the gods and mankind.”

The Egyptians related many allegories concerning their various deities, but we have space only to narrate the story regarding Osiris and Isis, god of the sun and the goddess of dawn. As their gods were supposed to assume many different characters and attributes, this story represents Osiris as the river Nile, Isis as the land of Egypt, and Typho as the sea.

The allegory is thus given:—

“Osiris, having become king of Egypt, applied himself towards civilizing his countrymen by turning them from their former barbarous course of life, teaching them, moreover, to cultivate and improve the fruits of the earth. With the same good disposition he afterwards travelled over the rest of the world, inducing the people everywhere to submit to his discipline, by the mildest persuasion. During his absence from his kingdom, Typho had no opportunity of making any innovations in the state, Isis being extremely vigilant in the government and always on her guard. After the return of Osiris, however, Typho, having persuaded seventy-two other persons to join him in the conspiracy, together with a certain queen of Æthiopia, named Aso, who chanced to be in Egypt at the time, contrived a proper stratagem to execute his base designs. For, having privately taken a measure of Osiris’s body, he caused a chest to be made exactly of that size, as beautiful as possible, and set off with all the ornaments of art. This chest he brought into the banqueting-room, where, after it had been much admired by all present, Typho, as if in jest, promised to give it to any one of them whose body upon trial it might be found to fit. Upon this the whole company, one after the other, got into it; but as it did not fit any of them, last of all Osiris laid himself down in it, upon which the conspirators immediately ran together, clapped on the cover, and then, fastening it on the outside with nails, poured melted lead over it.

“After this, having carried it away to the riverside, they conveyed it to the sea by the Tanaïtic mouth of the Nile, which for this reason is still held in the utmost abhorrence by the Egyptians, and never named by them but with proper marks of detestation.

“These things happened on the 17th day of the month Athor, when the sun was in Scorpio, in the 28th year of Osiris’s reign, though others say he was no more than twenty-eight years old at the time.

“The first who knew the accident that had befallen their king were the Pans and Satyrs, who lived about Chemmis; and they, immediately acquainting the people with the news, gave the first occasion to the name of Panic terrors.... Isis, as soon as the report reached her, cut off one of the locks of her hair and put on mourning.

“At length she received more particular news of the chest. It had been carried by the waves of the sea to the coast of Byblos, and there gently lodged in the branches of a tamarisk bush, which in a short time had shot up into a large tree, growing round the chest and enclosing it on every side, so that it could not be seen; and the king of the country, having cut down the tree, had made the part of the trunk wherein the chest was concealed a pillar to support the roof of his house. Isis, having gone to Byblos, obtained possession of this pillar, and then set sail with the chest for Egypt. But intending a visit to her son Horus, who was brought up at Butus, she deposited the chest in the meantime in a remote and unfrequented place. Typho, however, as he was one night hunting by the light of the moon, accidentally met with it; and knowing the body enclosed in it, tore it into fourteen pieces, disposing them up and down in different parts of the country.

“Being acquainted with this event, Isis set out once more in search of the scattered members of her husband’s body, using a boat made of the papyrus rush in order the more easily to pass through the lower and fenny parts of the country. And one reason assigned for the many different sepulchres of Osiris shown in Egypt is, that wherever any one of his scattered limbs was discovered, she buried it in that spot; though others suppose that it was owing to an artifice of the queen, who presented each of those cities with an image of her husband, in order that, if Typho should overcome Horus in the approaching conquest, he might be unable to find the real sepulchre. Isis succeeded in recovering all the different members, with the exception of one, which had been devoured by the lepidotus, the phagrus, and the oxyrhinchus; for which reason these fish are held in abhorrence by the Egyptians. To make amends, therefore, for this loss, she consecrated the phallus, and instituted a solemn festival to its memory.

“A battle at length took place between Horus and Typho, in which the latter was taken prisoner. Isis, however, to whose custody he was committed, so far from putting him to death, set him at liberty; which so incensed Horus that he tore off the royal diadem she wore; but Hermes substituted in its stead a helmet made in the shape of an ox’s head. At length two other battles were fought, in which Typho was defeated.”

This allegory is thus explained:—

“Osiris means the inundation of the Nile.

“Isis, the irrigated portion of the land of Egypt.

“Horus, their offspring, the vapors and exhalations reproducing rain.

“Butus, the marshy lands of Lower Egypt, where those vapors were nourished.

“Typho, the sea which swallowed up the Nile water.

“The conspirators, the drought overcoming the moisture, from which the increase of the Nile proceeds.

“The chest in which Osiris’s body was confined, the banks of the river, within which it retired after the inundation.

“The Tanaïtic mouth, the lake and barren lands about it, which were held in abhorrence from their being overflowed by the river without producing any benefit to the country.

“The twenty-eight years of his life, the twenty-eight cubits to which the Nile rises at Elephantina, its greatest height.

“The 17th of Athor, the period when the river retires within its banks.

“The queen of Æthiopia, the southern winds preventing the clouds being carried southward.

“The different members of Osiris’s body, the main channels and canals by which the inundation passed into the interior of the country, where each was said to be afterwards buried. That one which could not be recovered was the generative power of the Nile, which still continued in the stream itself.

“The victory of Horus, the power possessed by the clouds in causing the successive inundations of the Nile.”

Many animals, insects, and plants were considered sacred by the Egyptians: among them were the cynocephalus ape, sacred to Thoth; shrew-mouse, sacred to Mant; dog, sacred to Anubis; cat, sacred to Pashtor Bubastis; lion, sacred to Gom, or Hercules; hippopotamus, sacred to Mars; pig and ass, emblems of Typho; goat, sacred to Mendes; cow, sacred to Athor.

The sacred oxen were Apis, Mnevis, and Basis, sacred to Osiris, Apollo, and Onuphis.

The sacred birds of Egypt were the vulture, eagle, hawk, white and saffron-colored cocks, little egret, sacred to Osiris; ibis, sacred to Thoth; goose, emblem of Seb. Fabulous and unknown sacred birds were the phœnix, sacred to Osiris; the “pure soul” of the king (a bird with man’s head and arms), emblem of the soul; vulture with a snake’s head; hawk with man’s and ram’s head.

The sacred reptiles were the tortoise, crocodile, asp, and frog. The fabulous serpents were snakes with human heads, with hawk’s head, and with lion’s head.

The sacred fishes of Egypt were the oxyrhinchus, the eel, the lepidotus, satus, and mæotes. The scorpion was the emblem of the goddess Selk. Different species of beetles were held sacred to the sun, and adopted as an emblem of the world.

Foremost amongst the sacred plants of the East, being not merely a symbol, but frequently the object of worship in itself, was the undying lotus, which, from the throne of Osiris, Isis, and Nepthys, rises in the midst of the waters, bearing on the margin of its blossom the four genii.

“The Persians represent the sun as ‘rob’d with light, with lotus crown’d.’ Among the Chinese it symbolized Buddha, and is the emblem of female beauty. The Japanese deem it the emblem of purity, since it is not sullied by the muddy waters in which it often grows. With the flowers of the motherwort, it is borne before the body in their funeral processions. The Hindoo deities are often represented seated upon a lotus flower. Kamadeva, or Cupid, is depicted as floating down the blue Ganges—

‘Upon a rosy lotus wreath,

Catching new lustre from the tide

That with his image shone beneath.’”

The consort of Vishnu, Laksmi, was also called the “Lotus-born,” because she was said to have ascended from the ocean on its blossom.

Brahma was believed to have sprung from Narayana,—that is, “the Spirit of God moving on the waters,”—and he is thus described in a Hindoo poem:—

“A form cerulean fluttered o’er the deep;

Brightest of beings, greatest of the great,

Who, not as mortals steep

Their eyes in dewy sleep,

But heavenly pensive on the lotus lay,

That blossom’d at his touch, and shed a golden ray.”

An ancient prayer, common to the inhabitants of Tibet and the slopes of the Himalayas, consists of unceasing repetitions of the words, Om mane padne haun, meaning, “Oh, the jewel in the lotus! Amen.”

“The Grecian god of silence, Harpocrates, who was the Egyptian Aurora, or Dayspring, and was the son of Isis, was often represented on the lotus. The god Nofre Atmoo also bore the lotus on his head.”

The lotus is regarded in Egyptian delineations as signifying the creation of the world. In the gallery of Egyptian antiquities in the British Museum there are several statues bearing sceptres formed of the lotus; and also a mummy holding in each hand of his crossed arms a lotus flower. There was also brought to England, some years ago, a bust of Isis emerging from a lotus flower, which has frequently been mistaken for one of Clytie changing into a sunflower.

Three species of nymphæceæ, called lotus, were cultivated in Egypt. One of these still grows in immense quantities in Lower Egypt. This lotus has fragrant white blossoms, and fruit the size of that of the poppy, filled with small seeds, used as an article of food. It closely resembles our white water-lily. “It was the ‘rose of ancient Egypt,’ the favorite flower of the country, and was made into wreaths and garlands. With the blue lotus of the Nile (Nymphæa cœrulea), it formed models for many works of art. But the sacred lotus is the Nelumbo. This is the sacred bean of Egypt, the ‘rose lily of the Nile’ of Herodotus, the lotus par excellence. Its blossoms are larger than those of the white or blue lotus; they are of a brilliant red color sometimes, but rarely white, and hang over broad peltated leaves, resembling, in their magnificent beauty, those—

‘Eastern flowers large,

Some dropping low their crimson bells

Half closed; others studded wide

With disks and tears, that fed the time

With odor, in the prime of good

Haroun Alraschid.’

“The Nelumbo was cultivated as much for its usefulness as an article of food, as for its beauty. Its roots, seeds, and leaf-stalks are all edible. The fruit is formed of many valves, each containing a nut about the size of a filbert, with a taste more delicate than that of almonds. The use of the seeds in making bread, and the mode of sowing them,—by enclosing each seed in a ball of clay, and throwing it into the water,—may probably be alluded to in the text, ‘Cast thy bread upon the waters, for thou shalt find it after many days.’ The Nelumbo is a native of the north of Africa, of India, China, Japan, Persia, and Asiatic Russia, and in all these countries maintains its sacred character. The fable of the nymph Lotis, who was transformed into a tree bearing her name, is supposed to be of Eastern origin. It was under the lote-tree, beyond which there is no passing, that Mohammed was said to have met the angel Gabriel. This lotis or lotus tree must not be confounded with the sacred bean, or lotus flower, which is a totally distinct plant. The lotus-tree is a moderate-sized thorny tree, with broad leaves, fruit as large as an olive, of a reddish color, containing the nut, the taste of which is sweetish, resembling that of a fig or date. It was this lotus-tree which Homer refers to, when he describes the charm of certain fruit which Ulysses dreaded would lure his companions to give up home and friends forever, as the fable was, that whosoever ate of its fruit would never leave the enchanted land.”

On account of these numerous stories connected with the far-famed lotus of the East, it has become one of the most illustrious flowers of romance and poetry. Its praises have been sung in all the languages of Eastern climes, until its very name has become the synonyme for oriental splendor and goddess-like attractions.

The asp appeared to be one of the favorite emblems of deity, and also of royalty, and many strange stories are told of different species of asps. The following is related to show the extreme veneration paid to sacred animals.

“A sacred serpent of Melite had priests and ministers, a table, and a bowl. It was kept in a tower, and fed by the priests with cakes made of flour and of honey, which they placed there in the bowl. Having done this, they retired. The next day, on returning to the apartment, the food was found to be eaten, and the same quantity was again put into the bowl, for it was not lawful for any one to see the sacred reptile. On one occasion, one of the priests being anxious to behold it, went in alone, and having deposited the cake, withdrew, until the moment when he supposed the serpent had come forth to its repast. He then entered, throwing open the door with great violence, upon which the serpent withdrew in evident indignation, and the priest shortly after became frantic, and having confessed his crime, expired.”

The Egyptian asp is a species of cobra de capello, and is still very common in Egypt. As our story of Cleopatra is connected with the asp, the following facts will be interesting. It is called Nashir, a word signifying “spreading,” from its dilating its breast when angry. The snake-players of modern days use this same serpent in their juggling tricks, taking care first to extract its fangs, or to burn out the poison-bag with a hot iron. The asp is generally about three or four feet long; they are easily tamed; their food consists of mice, frogs, and other reptiles. They are accustomed to live in gardens during the warm weather, where they are of great use. It is supposed that the asp employed by Cleopatra was a kind of poisonous snake much smaller than the common variety; and the name, like that of viper, may have been applied to venomous serpents of different species. Mummies of the asp have been discovered in Thebes.

We have not space to describe the marvellous monuments and pyramids of ancient Egypt, and will only give one statement of Herodotus in connection with them. Herodotus says, that each of the two great pyramids near Memphis required twenty years in building; and that one hundred thousand men were unceasingly employed on the work, who were relieved every three months; and that only sixteen hundred talents of silver were spent on the radishes, onions, and garlic for the workmen, which was probably their only pay, making about eighteen pence a year of our money, for each man.

A slight sketch of an Egyptian house and dinner party will aid us in obtaining a more definite idea of the manners and customs of those times. The apartments appropriated to the reception of guests in Egyptian houses were sometimes on the ground floor, sometimes in the first story; though from the size, beauty, and arrangement of their gardens it is supposed that they often entertained their friends in the cool and shady retreats there. These reception rooms were provided with handsome chairs, fauteuils, stools, and low seats. While conversing, they did not recline on divans or couches, though ottomans and richly covered couches formed part of the furniture in Egyptian apartments of state. Egyptian tables were round, square, or oblong; the common people sat cross-legged or crouched on the ground. Little is known of the furniture of their bedrooms, but numerous wooden pillows have been found with grooved places for the head. Those for the rich were made of alabaster. In their entertainments they made lavish display and provided various amusements. Songs, music, dancing, buffoonery, feats of agility, and games of chance were introduced. The guests arrived in chariots or in palanquins borne by their servants on foot. Sometimes their attendants held over them parasols to protect them from the sun, and one slave carried a stool to enable his master to alight with ease, while another bore his writing-tablet, or whatever article of apparel he might need. To those who arrived from a journey, water was brought in a golden ewer to wash their feet before entering the reception-room. It was also customary for each guest to be anointed with ointment by a servant, as he seated himself; then a lotus flower was presented to each visitor, who held it in his hand during the entertainment. Servants also brought necklaces of the same or other flowers, and hung them around the neck of each person, and placed garlands of flowers on their heads with a single lotus bud so arranged that it would fall over the forehead. Wreaths and other devices of flowers were laid around the room on stands, while servants constantly brought fresh blossoms from the gardens to replace those which had faded. After the floral decorations, wine was offered to the guests. While the dinner was being prepared, the company were entertained by music by a band of musicians, who performed upon the harp, lyre, guitar, tambourine, double and single pipe, flute, and other instruments. The Egyptians paid great attention to the study of music. The father of Cleopatra received the name of Auletes from his skill in playing on the flute. Long before the lyre was known in Greece the Egyptians had attained great perfection in the form of their stringed instruments, and Greek sages visited Egypt to study music among the other sciences for which it was renowned. Harps of fourteen, and lyres of seventeen, strings are found to have been used by ordinary Egyptian musicians 1570 B.C. The strings of the Egyptian harp were of catgut, and some discovered at Thebes in 1823 were so well preserved that they emitted a sound on being touched. Apollodorus relates the following story of the supposed invention of the lyre:—

“The Nile having overflowed the whole country of Egypt, when it returned within its natural bounds, left on the shore a great number of animals of various kinds, and among the rest a tortoise, the flesh of which being dried and wasted by the sun, nothing remained within the shell but nerves and cartilages, and these being braced and contracted by the drying heat became sonorous. Mercury, walking along the banks of the river, happened to strike his foot against this shell, and was so pleased with the sound produced that the idea of a lyre presented itself to his imagination. He therefore constructed the instrument in the form of a tortoise and strung it with the dried sinews of dead animals.”

It was not customary for the upper classes of the Egyptians to indulge in dancing, and hired dancers were employed on all festive occasions. Grace in posture and movement was the chief object of those skilled in the dance. Many of their postures and steps resembled those of the modern ballet; and the pirouette enlivened an Egyptian party more than thirty-five hundred years ago.

Having given this outline of the manners and customs of ancient Egypt, we will take up the more immediate history of Cleopatra. It will be remembered that Alexander the Great, after his conquest of Egypt, founded the magnificent city of Alexandria situated at the mouth of the river Nile. One of the most expensive and famous of all edifices erected by the Ptolemies was the light-house on the island of Pharos, opposite to the city, and at some distance from it a pier was subsequently built connecting the island with the mainland. This light-house was a lofty tower constructed of white marble. This great edifice was erected by Ptolemy Philadelphus, the second monarch in that line. It was regarded as one of the seven wonders of the world. The architect of this light-house was a man named Sostratus. Ptolemy ordered that a marble tablet should be placed in the wall of the tower, bearing his name as the builder of this wonder. Sostratus seemingly obeyed, but he outwitted the haughty monarch. Sostratus secretly engraved his own name upon the marble tablet, and then covered it with an artificial cement similar in appearance to the marble. On this outer surface he cut the name of the king, and the tablet was placed in the wall without detection. In process of time the cement mouldered away as the architect had calculated upon, and the king’s name disappeared, while that of Sostratus remained as long as the building endured.

The city of Alexandria was also world-renowned for its immense library and museum established by the Ptolemies. The museum was not a collection of curiosities, but an institution of learning where sages congregated to devote their time to the study of philosophy and science. The institution was richly endowed, and very magnificent buildings were erected for its use. The most valuable books from all parts of the world were collected here, the king buying, borrowing, or even stealing, these rare treasures, when they could not be otherwise obtained from neighboring nations; and scribes were kept constantly employed in copying these works on parchment by handwriting, as printing was then unknown, so far as can be discovered; though it is hardly safe to assert that any thing was unknown to those ancient Egyptians, for new discoveries amongst the remains of their ruined cities are continually revealing some hitherto unimagined fact regarding the knowledge and civilization of that strange and powerful nation. After copies were made of all these valuable volumes, or scrolls, the original was always kept in the Alexandrine museum and library, while the copy was graciously returned to the owners, whether individuals or nations. At length the library collected in the museum increased to four hundred thousand volumes. No more could be stored in the museum, and so a wonderful temple, called the Serapion, situated in another part of the city, was used as a depository for additional volumes. Three hundred thousand volumes were afterwards accumulated in this temple. The strange history of this Serapion must not be omitted. One of the ancient gods of the Egyptians was a deity named Serapis. He was the particular divinity of seamen. A statue of this god existed in the town of Sinope, in Asia Minor. The Ptolemy kings of Egypt were desirous of making Alexandria the most important seaport and naval station in the world, and they thought this could not be accomplished without the presence of this sacred statue of the god Serapis, as his worship would bring to their city all the seamen who made pilgrimages to the shrine of their god. The king of Sinope was unwilling to part with the statue, and refused all offers of the Egyptian king to purchase this venerated image of the deity. At length, however, a famine fell upon the land of Sinope, and the people in their distress were forced to part with their sacred idol in order to obtain corn from the Egyptians, who would furnish none without this condition. The statue of the god Serapis was accordingly brought to Alexandria, where a magnificent temple was erected to contain the idol. This temple was called the Serapion.

It was owing to the desire of the Ptolemies to make the Alexandrine library the wonder of the world, that the Old Testament of the Scriptures came to be translated into Greek, which had previously been written only in the Hebrew language, and was known only to the Jews. This King Ptolemy having learned that the Jews at Jerusalem possessed sacred writings which were guarded in their synagogue there, was very anxious to obtain a copy of them. As the Egyptians then held many of the Jews in slavery, who had been taken prisoners in war, Ptolemy rightly imagined that it would be difficult to accomplish his purpose. He accordingly first bought all the Jewish captives from their masters, at a cost of six hundred thousand dollars, and sent the liberated Jews home to Jerusalem. Deeming that he could now make his request of the Jewish authorities with some hopes of success after this generous treatment of their countrymen, Ptolemy sent a splendid embassage to Jerusalem, with respectful letters to the high-priest, and very magnificent presents. The request of Ptolemy was granted. The Jewish priests made very fine copies of their sacred writings, illuminating them with letters of gold. These were presented to Ptolemy, and seventy-two learned Jews were chosen from the twelve tribes and sent to Alexandria; and there they translated the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek. This translation is called the Septuagint, from the Latin words, septuaginta duo, meaning “seventy-two.” A copy of the Septuagint Bible may now be obtained for two days’ wages of a common laborer; but to secure the original translation the Egyptian king expended, it is said, over a million of dollars. Thus an Egyptian king gave to the world the first Greek translation of the Old Testament.

Having given this glimpse of Egyptian history as a background to our picture, we will confine the remainder of this sketch to the immediate history of Cleopatra and her family. Having shown the bright side of the picture of the reign of the Ptolemies, we are forced to look for a moment upon dark and bloody scenes. The early sovereigns in the line of the Ptolemies were distinguished for wise government and the advancement of their people in arts, sciences, and literature. The first Ptolemy was Ptolemy Soter, who, together with his son and successor, Ptolemy Philadelphus, were the most illustrious of the line. So greatly was Ptolemy Soter, the founder of the dynasty, venerated by his subjects, that divine honors were paid to his memory after his death. But the succeeding Ptolemies grew more and more vicious, weak, and sensuous, until the great-grandfather of Cleopatra stands forth in history merely as a horrid monster of all vice and crime. He was Ptolemy Physcon, the seventh in the line. The name Physcon was given him in derision, on account of his grotesque appearance. Being very small of stature, his gluttony and dissipation had increased his rotundity of figure to enormous proportions, making him more of a monster than man in appearance. His brother, who was king before him, dying, left a wife, who was also his sister, named Cleopatra, this name being common in the family of the Ptolemies. Queen Cleopatra had a little son, and a daughter, also called Cleopatra, a beautiful girl of about fifteen years of age. The son of this queen was really heir to the throne; but the friends of Physcon succeeded in persuading Queen Cleopatra to marry him, under the conditions that he should be king, but that Cleopatra’s son, the child of Physcon’s brother, should be heir to the throne. Physcon agreed to this; but no sooner had he married the queen, who was also his sister, when he brutally killed her son, while in her own arms, and upon the very bridal day. This inhuman monster then fell in love with the young Cleopatra, his niece, and soon divorced the queen and married her daughter. But so great were his cruelties and crimes that the people rose against him, and he was forced to flee for his life. He took with him a beautiful boy, who was his own son, and also the child of the Queen Cleopatra whom he had divorced. The people then reinstated Queen Cleopatra upon the throne. When the queen’s birthday arrived, it was celebrated with great magnificence, and many guests were assembled at the palace; at which time a large box was brought in as a present to the queen. It was opened in the presence of the guests, as all supposed that some neighboring monarch had sent some costly gift. As the cover was lifted, what was the horror of the queen and her friends to behold the head and hands of her beautiful boy, whom Physcon had taken with him! These bloody relics were placed amid a heap of the fragments of the body in such manner that the mother might recognize her son, and the fiend-like monster, in sending this ghastly gift, had commanded that it should be presented to his former wife as a birthday token, and that it should only be opened in the presence of her guests. Such were some of the shocking deeds performed by members of the family of the famous Cleopatra. No wonder that her nature, inherited from such inhuman monsters, was not free from barbarous instincts.

The father of the illustrious Cleopatra was little better than his revolting predecessors. Blood, murder, and intrigue, and all crimes and vices formed his inheritance, handed down by his grandfather, the fiendish Physcon. The younger Cleopatra, whom Physcon married for his second wife, became such an inhuman being of atrocity and crime that she was put to death by one of her sons, whose destruction she had planned in order to seize the throne. The mother of Auletes, the father of the great Cleopatra, was merciless and wicked, like the rest of the line, disregarding every virtuous principle and family tie. Her daughters were worthy followers of her atrocious example, and at length one murdered the other in jealous hate. Such was the bloody and shocking family record which the world-renowned Cleopatra inherited, together with the throne of one of the most powerful and remarkable nations of the earth. Her father followed in the same bloody footsteps. Having been dethroned by his subjects, who hated him on account of his atrocious vices,—for this Ptolemy Auletes was one of the most dissipated and corrupt of all the sovereigns of that dynasty,—he fled to Rome to obtain aid to recover his throne. The Egyptian people, meanwhile, had made his eldest daughter, Berenice, queen. Auletes, having at length raised an army with the help of Pompey, the Roman general, who espoused his cause, returned to Alexandria, defeated the Egyptians, and recovered his throne; and immediately thereupon put his eldest daughter, Berenice, to death. When Cleopatra was about eighteen years of age, her father died, having left a will by which the throne of Egypt was to be held by Cleopatra and her younger brother Ptolemy, who were to marry each other and reign conjointly.

This terrible deed, which is regarded with just abhorrence as a dreadful and revolting crime in our days, was a customary practice among Egyptian monarchs; and in their mythology their gods and goddesses were also represented as marrying brothers and sisters. As both Cleopatra and her brother were too young to govern Egypt, they only reigned in name, while the government was administered by two ministers, named Pothinus and Achillas. As these statesmen, one of whom was also general-in-chief of the army, desired to obtain complete control of the empire, they espoused the cause of Ptolemy, Cleopatra’s brother and so-called husband, who was so young that they imagined they could manage him as they wished. They accordingly deposed Cleopatra, placing Ptolemy alone on the throne; though in reality they were the sovereigns themselves.

Cleopatra, who early displayed a dauntless courage and a resistless self-reliance, fled to Syria to raise troops, that she might secure by force her rightful inheritance. Cleopatra obtained an army, and commenced her march back into Egypt. Pothinus and Achillas went forth to meet her, accompanied by a large body of troops, taking the young Ptolemy with them as the nominal sovereign. The two armies encamped near Pelusium. But no battle was fought, owing to unexpected circumstances.

It was at this time that the conflict was waging in Rome between Julius Cæsar and Pompey. As Pompey had given aid to Ptolemy Auletes, the father of Cleopatra, in recovering his throne, Pompey fled to Egypt, hoping to find succor there. But he was treacherously invited to land by the Egyptian ministers, Pothinus and Achillas, and then barbarously murdered while stepping on shore. Julius Cæsar soon after arrived at Alexandria; and when this news reached the camps of the Egyptian armies, the two ministers, with the young king, Ptolemy, hastily returned to Alexandria; and, hoping to propitiate Cæsar, they sent to him the head of the murdered Pompey. Cæsar, far from being pleased, was greatly shocked, and ordered the head of his late enemy to be buried with imposing ceremonies.

Cæsar had landed at Alexandria with only a few troops, and had established himself in the royal palace. He demanded the six thousand talents which Ptolemy Auletes had promised for securing the alliance of Rome, which had never been entirely paid. Cæsar also claimed that, by the will of Auletes, the Roman people had been made his executors; and he declared that, as consul of the Roman people, it was for him to decide the dispute between Cleopatra and her brother Ptolemy.

While matters were in this state, Cleopatra determined to use stratagem in gaining her own cause.

She therefore sent a message to Cæsar, asking permission to appear before him. Cæsar thereupon urged her to come.

Cleopatra then took a single boat, and with but few attendants left the army secretly; and arriving at Alexandria, she waited until nightfall, and then advanced with a single servant to the wall of the citadel. This servant, named Apollodorus, at the bidding of Cleopatra, rolled her up in a bundle of carpeting, and, covering the package in such a manner as to resemble a bale of merchandise, he lifted it over his shoulder and carried it into the city, and arrived unmolested at the palace. In answer to the questions of the guards stationed at the gates of the palace, he replied that he carried a present to Cæsar. Whereupon he obtained access to Cæsar’s apartments; and when his mysterious bundle was unrolled, even the stern Roman general was fascinated by the vision of loveliness which met his wondering gaze. Cleopatra was at this time about twenty-one years of age. She was of slender and graceful form, and renowned, not so much for her regularity of features, as for an indescribable charm and witchery of manner and expression. As she pleaded her cause before the great conqueror, with lively intelligence and quick wit and winning sweetness, the conqueror became the conquered; and Julius Cæsar’s heart became a toy in the hands of this fair young girl, and her wishes became his law. He who had conquered the known world was led captive by the charms of this wilful, fascinating, star-eyed beauty of the Nile.

Cæsar immediately espoused Cleopatra’s cause with great fervor. He sent for the young king, Ptolemy, and urged upon him the expediency of restoring Cleopatra to her rights as joint sovereign with himself. But the young Ptolemy had now arrived at the age of wilfulness, and refused to give his sister her place as queen. He was, moreover, very much vexed that Cleopatra had delivered herself into the power of Cæsar. He left the palace in a rage, tearing the diadem from his head, in his indignation, and declaring to the people that he was betrayed.

Ptolemy and his officers did not have a large body of troops in the city of Alexandria; for the main army was still stationed at Pelusium, where Cleopatra’s army was also encamped.

The populace were so inflamed by the representations of Ptolemy and his ministers, who declared that Cæsar had seized and imprisoned Cleopatra, that the excited people rushed to make an attack upon the palace. Cæsar had but a small force to guard the palace; but he boldly sent out a detachment of his soldiers, with orders to seize Ptolemy, and bring him as a prisoner. This was accomplished, to the great astonishment of the people at such unheard-of daring. Then Cæsar mounted to a high window in the tower, and made signs to the mob below that he wished to speak with them. Quiet being restored, Cæsar told the people that, as he was a representative of the Roman nation, whom Auletes had made the executors of his will, he would endeavor to decide justly the questions concerning Cleopatra and Ptolemy; and he recommended them to retire without further riot. Accordingly the mob dispersed, and Ptolemy and Cleopatra remained under Cæsar’s guardianship.

The next day an assembly of the chief men of Alexandria was convened by Cæsar; and the will of Auletes having been publicly read in their hearing, the decision announced by Cæsar, that Cleopatra was entitled to reign with Ptolemy, was not openly opposed. Thereupon Cleopatra was reinstated by Cæsar; and he proposed that her younger sister, Arsinoë, with a still younger brother, also named Ptolemy, should receive the island of Cyprus as a joint realm. Cyprus being at this time a Roman possession, this provision would be a royal gift, which Cæsar thought would help to appease the Egyptian people.

A grand festival was held to celebrate this reconciliation; and during the feast one of the servants of Cæsar overheard some remarks, which led to the discovery of a plot which had been formed against Cæsar by the Egyptian ministers, Pothinus and Achillas. Cæsar being informed of the plan, set a guard at the door where the feast was held, and Pothinus was killed. Achillas fled to the Egyptian army, and assuming command, he marched against Cæsar.

The war which now ensued is known as the Alexandrine war. Achillas had at first the advantage in this contest, as his army was large, while Cæsar had brought but few soldiers with him to Alexandria, and his reinforcements had not arrived. Cæsar, knowing the importance of holding control of all the approaches to the city by sea, sent out an expedition to burn all the shipping in the harbor, and to take possession of a fort upon the island of Pharos, which commanded the entrance to the port. This undertaking was successful; but in its accomplishment an irretrievable loss was sustained, not only by the city of Alexandria, but by the entire world. This was the burning of the famous library already described.

After various minor conflicts, a great battle was fought, in which the Egyptians were defeated. Ptolemy, who had previously joined the Egyptian army, was afterwards drowned in the Nile.

The younger sister of Cleopatra, Arsinoë, who had escaped from the palace with her guardian, called Ganymedes, and had taken refuge with the Egyptian army, was captured by Cæsar’s soldiers, and brought to him as a prisoner. The war being ended by the victory of Cæsar, Cleopatra was placed upon the throne of Egypt, in conjunction with her youngest brother, Ptolemy, as the elder was dead; and after two years Cæsar returned to Rome, taking Arsinoë with him as his prisoner. In his grand triumphal celebrations this Egyptian princess was forced to walk before the chariot of Cæsar, bound with golden chains. Cæsar had become so infatuated with Cleopatra that he had taken her as his wife, while in Egypt, although he was already married to a Roman lady. And after Cæsar’s return to Rome, Cleopatra followed him with their infant son, named Cæsario, and her younger brother, Ptolemy, who reigned with her as king of Egypt.

Upon the death of Cæsar, which occurred about four years after, Cleopatra endeavored to get her child acknowledged by the Roman senate as her colleague on the throne of Egypt. She was living in Rome in Cæsar’s villa when he met his death at the hands of the conspirators. She thereupon applied to Cicero to use his influence in behalf of her son Cæsario, and offered him some rare books and works of art. But Cicero was offended at her haughtiness, and refused to espouse her cause. Cleopatra, fearing that her own life was in danger,—for the Roman people were much incensed against her on account of her influence over Cæsar,—then fled secretly to Egypt with her son Cæsario. As Ptolemy, her youngest brother, had now arrived at the age of fifteen years, at which time he was allowed to assume all the royal prerogatives of a sovereign, Cleopatra contrived to have him poisoned, that she might reign sole monarch. She had then reigned four years with her elder brother and four with the younger Ptolemy, and from that time she reigned alone.

This shocking murder of her own brother reveals the savage instincts which she had inherited from her ancestors, who were guilty of the most atrocious crimes. She had seen her own father murder her eldest sister out of cruel revenge, and her childhood had been passed amidst scenes of profligacy and vice. For a time her nobler impulses had obtained the ascendancy over her; but from this time forward all the marvellous fascinations of mind and manner, which enslaved all who came within their magic spell, were debased by evil motives, and became the instruments of accomplishing the ruin of all who were so unfortunate as to become infatuated with her alluring beauty, melodious voice, and brilliant mind.

After the famous battle of Philippi and the death of Brutus and Cassius, Octavius Cæsar and Mark Antony and a Roman general named Lepidus formed the celebrated triumvirate, which continued for some time afterwards to wield the supreme power over the Roman world. The battle of Philippi established the ascendancy of Antony, and made him the most conspicuous man, as Cleopatra was the most conspicuous woman, in the world.

After the murder of Cæsar, Cleopatra did not openly declare herself a partisan of either his friends or enemies. But as some suspicious circumstances occurred, Antony afterwards summoned her to appear before him on a charge of aiding Cassius. Antony was then at Tarsus, and the famous sail of Cleopatra up the river Cydnus took place at that time. The description of this gorgeous scene we have already narrated. The name of the messenger sent by Antony to summon Cleopatra to his presence was Dellius. This officer had proceeded to Egypt on this errand, but having beheld the far-famed Egyptian queen, he was so astonished at her beauty and captivated by her fascinations of voice and manner, that he told her she need have no fears of Antony, for he was sure her matchless charms would speedily overwhelm him. He advised her to proceed to Tarsus with as much pomp and magnificence as possible, arrayed in her best attire, and displaying all the gorgeous luxury of her court.

Cleopatra was not slow to follow this advice, but she took her own time in obeying Antony’s summons; thus already making him submit to her own sweet will. “The great secret of Cleopatra’s power of winning was the instinctive insight she possessed into men’s dispositions, and her exquisite tact in discovering their vulnerable points. She won Julius Cæsar by throwing herself into his power, and won Mark Antony by exercising her power over him. She flattered Julius Cæsar’s love of dominion by submitting herself to it; she swayed Mark Antony’s heart by assuming rule there. She caused herself to be carried to Julius Cæsar; she bade Mark Antony come to her. She behaved with humility and deference to Julius; she treated Antony with gay despotism and wayward playfulness. She derived her fortune and held her crown from Julius Cæsar’s bestowal; she outvied Antony in costly display and sumptuous entertainment. Her irresistible allurement lay in her faculty of adapting herself to men’s peculiar tastes and predilections. She followed Julius to Rome; she shared Antony’s wildest frolics. Antony’s passion for Cleopatra was a luxurious intoxication.”

When the magnificent barge of Cleopatra landed at the city of Tarsus, all the populace ran to the river-banks to behold the gorgeous sight. Antony, who was then engaged at some tribunal, found himself completely deserted, as every one had fled in haste to the river. When Cleopatra landed, she ordered her tents to be immediately pitched upon the shore.

Antony sent a polite invitation to the Egyptian queen to dine with him; but she courteously replied that it would be more pleasing to her to receive him and his generals as her guests. And when Antony and his officers entered her superb tents, the gorgeous magnificence everywhere displayed with most lavish abundance astonished and bewildered them. The dinner service was of gold set with precious stones, and the twelve seats arranged for the guests were ornamented with purple and gold. When Antony praised the splendor of the sight before him, Cleopatra disdainfully replied that these were but trifles; but if the service and ornaments pleased him, she begged him to accept them all as a slight gift from her. The next day Cleopatra was invited to dine with Antony; and although he endeavored in every manner possible to equal the richness and splendor of her entertainment, he fell so far short, that he acknowledged with chagrin his defeat. Again Antony and his generals were feted in the tents of Cleopatra. This time the tables were spread with a new service of gold and silver, more magnificent than those beheld at the former feast. The rare jewels with which they were adorned, and their unique and elegant workmanship, surprised her guests into still warmer exclamations of wonder and delight. At the end of the entertainment Cleopatra presented to each guest the gorgeous chair in which he had reclined, and distributed amongst them all the splendid service of gold and silver dishes, which were richly encrusted with costly jewels.

Not only were the entertainments furnished by Cleopatra in honor of Antony so very gorgeous, but her costumes were each day more bewitching, and even her attendants were attired in rich and expensive robes; while the tents and surrounding gardens and pavilions were illuminated with innumerable lights, which were so ingeniously disposed, some in squares, and some in circles, that the spectacle was surprising in beauty. Antony was not only enchanted by the brilliancy of these fairy-like scenes, but Cleopatra herself was irresistible. She was not so remarkable for actual beauty, but her chief fascination was the charming combination of face, form, and winning conversation, which rendered her bewitching. Her voice has been compared to an instrument of many strings, so melodious was it; and she spoke readily to every ambassador in his own language, and was said to have been the only sovereign of Egypt who understood the languages of all her subjects, which included the Greek, Egyptian, Ethiopic, Troglodytic, Hebrew, Arabic, and Syriac.

She was now twenty-five years of age. Her oriental beauty was at its height of splendor. Her mind was mature, and her wit was unequalled. These costly entertainments continued every day; and on one occasion, when Antony playfully reproached her for her extravagance, and said that it would not be possible to fare in a more costly manner, Cleopatra laughingly declared that the dinner of the next day should cost ten thousand sestertia, equal to three hundred thousand dollars.

Antony would not believe this surprising statement, and made a wager with her that she could not fulfil her promise. When he arrived with his generals the next day, he did not perceive any seeming added magnificence; and when Antony laughingly told her, that according to his reckoning of the cost of the viands and service, she had lost her wager, she replied, that she should herself soon eat and drink the ten thousand sestertia.

She wore in her ears two pearls, the largest known in the world, which she had inherited with her crown and kingdom. These two pearls were valued at two hundred and twenty-two thousand dollars apiece. Dryden, alluding to these jewels of Cleopatra, wrote, “Each pendant in her ear shall be a province.”

When the next course was served, a servant set before her a glass of vinegar. She thereupon took one of the ear-rings from her ear, and dropped it into the vinegar, and when the pearl was dissolved, she drank the liquid.

As she was about to sacrifice also the other magnificent jewel, one of the guests snatched it from her hand, exclaiming that she had won the wager. This rescued pearl was afterwards taken to Rome, and there cut in two and made into a pair of ear-rings for the statue of Venus in the Pantheon at Rome. And the fame of the wager made the two half-pearls as valuable as the two whole ones had been.

Cleopatra was also a beautiful singer, and she now employed all the arts of her beauty and mind to the task of completely subduing the will and the heart of the great Roman general, who was soon so entirely ensnared by this enchanting sorceress, that he forgot all about his wife, whom he had left in Rome, and also his duties of country, and even his glories of war; and thus this old warrior became a willing captive to the spell of Cleopatra, who persuaded him to follow her to Alexandria, and there he gave himself up to every kind of idle amusement and the most profligate dissipation.

Antony and Cleopatra had each a magnificent palace in Alexandria, and they feted each other by turns. Philotas, a young physician who was at that time pursuing his studies at Alexandria, related to Plutarch’s grandfather some incidents of these extravagant feasts. At one time Philotas entered Antony’s kitchen when eight wild boars were being roasted whole. Upon expressing astonishment at the large number of guests who must be expected, to require such a dinner, the cook informed him that there would be none others but Antony’s usual party of twelve; but as each dish must be served in perfection, and as Antony and Cleopatra often became engaged in some new diversion just as dinner was ready, and would thereupon give orders to have it wait their pleasure, it was necessary to cook eight entire dinners, that whichever one should suit their time to eat, it might be served without the slightest signs of neglect in its preparation.

But the most costly of the luxuries then used in Egypt were the scents and ointments. Many of these perfumes, such as the attar of roses, were sold for four hundred denarii the pound.

Cleopatra endeavored by every art possible to so fascinate Antony that he would not think of returning to Rome. Perceiving that Antony was partial to gross and sensuous pleasures, and more given to feasting than the polite arts and sciences, in which Cleopatra herself was remarkably accomplished, she therefore cultivated only the coarser side of her nature, and gave herself up to the most riotous amusements. She played at dice with him, hunted by his side, was present at all his military parades, and even joined him in his night revels in the street, when Antony, disguising himself as a servant, and Cleopatra dressed as a maid, accompanied by half-drunken companions, they went through the streets of Alexandria, attended with boisterous musicians and singers, and perpetrated all kinds of wild pranks.

Thus the elegant Cleopatra, who could charm Julius Cæsar with the marvellous intelligence and keen wit of her conversation and the graceful allurements of her refined beauty, when with the mad Antony, who was more of a wild boar than statesman, laid aside her bewitching loveliness of mind and manner, and condescended to join in a wild revelry, as boisterous and undignified as his coarser nature could enjoy. Yet even the witchery of her youth, beauty, wealth, and gracefulness could not cloak the enormities of vice and crime. Her first request of Antony was the death of her sister Arsinoë, who had been living in exile in Asia since the time when she had been taken to Rome as a prisoner by Julius Cæsar. Either from jealousy or ambition, Cleopatra desired her to be put out of her way, and Antony caused her to be killed in the temple of Diana, at Miletus, whither Arsinoë had fled for refuge. Thus did Cleopatra continue her bloody work even in the midst of her most gorgeous revels.

From henceforth in her history we can no longer think of her as the lovely lotus of the Nile, the very flower of womanly loveliness, as she appeared upon her enchanting barge, sailing in the glowing sunshine, over the shining waters of the Cydnus; but she becomes more like a beautiful tiger, or, as Shakespeare calls her, “that old serpent of the Nile,” charming the unwary victims by her glistening eyes and alluring wiles, only to crush them at last within the encircling coils of her irresistible spell. Antony had sent for her as her master, but he was now her slave.

One day the queen of Egypt accompanied him on a fishing excursion. Antony, having caught nothing, was much chagrined; and to appear successful in the eyes of Cleopatra, he ordered a fisherman to dive beneath the water and fasten to his line one of the large fish which the fisherman had just caught. This having been done, Antony drew in his line with much satisfaction, and displayed the fine trophy he had so skilfully ensnared. Cleopatra, however, was not ignorant of this artifice, but she affected much admiration for Antony’s successful angling, and she arranged for another fishing party the next day. Accordingly, when they once again set sail in the fishing-boats, she ordered one of her servants to dive below the water when Antony should throw his line, and fasten to his hook a large salt fish which had been brought from the province of Pontus. Again Antony drew in his line in triumph, which was quickly changed to intense mortification as he beheld the salt fish dangling from his hook. Amidst the uproarious laughter which this amusing incident occasioned, Cleopatra exclaimed, “Leave the line, good general, to us, the kings and queens of Pharos and Canopus; your business is to fish for cities, kingdoms, and kings.”

While Antony thus amused himself with such sports, and much more condemnatory pleasures, news reached him of trouble at Rome. His wife Fulvia and his brother had been banished, and Octavius Cæsar declared himself an open foe. Fulvia soon after died, and Antony returning to Rome, was reconciled to young Cæsar by marrying his sister Octavia, although Cleopatra already pretended to be his lawful wife; and in order to appease her, Antony was obliged to make magnificent presents to Cleopatra, consisting of the provinces of Phoenicia, the Lower Syria, the Isle of Cyprus, with a great part of Cilicia. Cleopatra also begged him to put to death Herod, king of Judea, and Malichus, king of Arabia, who were her enemies. But Antony did not yield to these bloody demands, and only gave her the balsam country around Jericho, and a rent-charge of thirty thousand pounds a year on the revenues of Judea. It is related that at a feast, when Cleopatra perceived Antony to be under the influence of wine, she even presumed to ask him to give her the Roman Empire, which he was not ashamed to promise her. On receiving these large additions to her kingdom, Cleopatra, in honor of Antony, dated the years of her reign anew, calling what was in reality the sixteenth year of her reign over Egypt, the first, and thus she reckoned them until her death. Antony also presented to her the large library of Pergamus, which had fallen to his share in the spoils of war. This library Eumenes and Attalus had hoped to make as famous as the museum of Alexandria, which had perished in the flames of the Alexandrine war. Cleopatra placed the two hundred thousand volumes thus acquired, in the temple of Serapis, and once again Alexandria held the largest library in the world, notwithstanding the destruction of the far-famed museum. These royal gifts caused the Romans to entertain bitter hatred against Antony, and especially against Cleopatra, whom they blamed for her evil influence over their once illustrious general.

After Antony’s marriage to Octavia, he made several expeditions against surrounding nations, and Octavia accompanied him into Greece. But open hostilities having broken out between Octavius and Antony, Octavia was sent to Rome to effect a reconciliation between her husband and brother. This she partially accomplished; but Antony, again ensnared by the enchantments of Cleopatra, forgot all his duties of state and country, and again was lured to Alexandria, leaving Octavia in Rome. This illustrious Roman lady displayed the most loyal devotion to her husband and their children, and endeavored in every way to dissuade her brother from taking up arms against Antony, whose cruel neglect of his wife inflamed her brother, Octavius Cæsar, to the most intense hatred, and a determination to avenge her wrongs, as well as assert his own ambitious power.

Meanwhile, Antony was spending his time in Egypt. At length he determined to undertake an expedition against the Parthians and Armenians. While in Phœnicia, Cleopatra joined him, bringing him money and clothes and food for his soldiers. Meanwhile Octavia had also left Rome and reached Athens, on her way to Antony’s camp, to bring him the supplies and money she had procured in Rome for his suffering troops. Fearing that Octavia might win Antony from her side, Cleopatra affected to die for love of him. She refrained from food, and was often discovered by him in tears; and her attendants constantly reminded him of her great grief, and declared that if he should leave her, she would surely die. As Antony had married Octavia only for political power in Rome, and as he did love Cleopatra more intensely than he had ever loved any human being before, he sent word to Octavia to return to Rome, and soon after sent deputies to Rome, to declare his divorce from Octavia, and with orders to command her to leave his house, with all her children.

Even this wicked and cruel indignity did not destroy the devoted love of Octavia. She obeyed the outrageous summons, and continued to take the most untiring care, not only of her own children, but of those of Antony and his former wife, Fulvia. She also endeavored to appease the indignation of the Roman people against him; but she could not lessen the resentment of her brother Octavius, who now prepared for open war. While the names of Antony and Cleopatra were held in abhorrence in Rome, in Alexandria new and most gorgeous honors were accorded them.

In the magnificent palace of the Ptolemies a massive throne of gold was erected, the ascent to which was by steps of solid silver. Upon this glistening throne sat Antony and Cleopatra. He was arrayed in a superb robe of purple, embroidered with gold, and buttoned with flashing diamonds. On his side he wore a Persian scimitar, the handle and sheath of which were encrusted with sparkling gems. His diadem glittered with precious stones, and in his right hand he held a sceptre of gold. Thus had he caused himself to be so gorgeously attired, in order, as he said, “that in such royal equipage he might deserve to be the husband of a queen.”

Upon his right side sat Cleopatra, costumed as the goddess Isis, whose name and honors she assumed on public occasions of great pomp and magnificence. She wore a shining robe of the precious linen set apart for the service of that goddess, so fine and sheer that it seemed to encase her graceful form in gleaming folds of shimmering light. Upon her royal brow glistened most priceless jewels, while her fair neck seemed almost weighted with its sparkling gem-encrusted chains. She looked, in truth, a very goddess, this proud Egyptian Queen, this gorgeous Lotus Blossom of the Nile, this most matchless siren, most peerless Peri of the Orient! Never before had she appeared more gloriously beautiful; though even now the black clouds of disappointment and death were gathering thick around, soon to overshadow herself and illustrious kingdom in irretrievable ruin. But unmindful of the coming storm, the eyes of this Egyptian Isis, seated in goddess-like magnificence upon her shining throne, flashed with proud triumph and gratified ambition.

A little lower upon this gorgeous throne sat three children. The eldest was Cæsario, the son of Cleopatra and Julius Cæsar; the two younger were Alexander and Ptolemy, sons of Antony and Cleopatra. Cæsario was dressed as a young Egyptian prince; while the younger boys wore the costumes of the countries over which they were to reign. After the people had assembled in the palace, by the command of Antony, heralds proclaimed Cleopatra queen of Egypt, Cyprus, Libya, and Cœlosyria, in conjunction with her son Cæsario. The young princes Alexander and Ptolemy were also proclaimed “kings of kings”; and to Alexander, the elder, Antony gave the kingdoms of Armenia and Media, with Parthia, when Antony should have conquered it. To the younger, Ptolemy, the kingdoms of Syria, Phoenicia, and Cilicia were given. After the proclamation the three young princes knelt before Cleopatra and Antony, and made them royal obeisance, kissing their hands. To each of them was afterwards assigned a regiment of guards and a retinue of youths chosen from the principal families in the several countries.

Cæsar now advanced with his army against Antony. Cleopatra, having furnished him with troops and ships,—which, together with his own land forces, formed a large army,—they departed to Ephesus, and thence to Samos, where, notwithstanding their impending peril, they passed many days in feasting and pleasure. The island became such a scene of riot and revelry that the people exclaimed in astonishment, “If Antony celebrates such festivities before going into battle, by what means could he express his joy should he obtain the victory?”

Antony and Cleopatra, with a magnificent retinue, then went to Athens. As Octavia had been formerly received by the Athenians with marked attentions, Cleopatra determined that she would outvie her rival. She accordingly lavished such costly gifts and immense sums of money amongst the Athenians, that they were amazed, and decreed to her the most exalted honors. They sent an imposing embassy to her, and Antony himself, in the character of an Athenian citizen, was one of the ambassadors.

It was during one of the gorgeous feasts celebrated at Samos that the following incident is supposed to have occurred.

Notwithstanding Cleopatra’s professed fondness for Antony, he began at length to fear that in some moment of anger or treachery she might poison him. He therefore ordered that all of the viands served at these banquets should be first tasted by one of his servants before he partook of them. Cleopatra, perceiving this mistrust, determined to teach him how completely he was in her power if she chose to do him harm.

She therefore ordered the stems of the flowers to be poisoned, which formed the wreaths worn by Antony and herself at table according to the Egyptian custom, and in the midst of the feast she proposed that they should pluck the flowers from their crowns and drink them in their wine. Antony readily consented, and breaking off many of the blossoms from his wreath, he threw them in his glass and raised it to his lips to drink.

But Cleopatra quickly seized his uplifted arm and exclaimed: “I am the poisoner against whom you take such mighty precautions. If it were possible for me to live without you, judge now whether I wanted either opportunity or reason for such action.” She thereupon immediately ordered that a prisoner, already condemned to die, should be brought into the apartment, and the cup which Antony had been about to taste was given him, and Cleopatra commanded that he should drink its contents; after taking which, the slave immediately expired.

At length Antony and Cleopatra set forth with their entire fleet to meet their Roman foes. This fleet consisted of five hundred ships of war of great size and peculiar construction; but they were illy manned, as Antony was not able to secure mariners enough, and had been obliged to employ husbandmen, artisans, muleteers, and even boys. On board the fleet were two hundred thousand foot and twelve thousand horse. The kings of many countries had joined their forces in behalf of Cleopatra, and troops had been sent from Libya, Cappadocia, Paphlagonia, Comagena, Thrace, Pontus, Judea, Lycaonia, Galatia, and Media. Though all the ships were imposing, none equalled the magnificence of Cleopatra’s galley with its purple sails glittering with gold; while flags and banners floated in the breeze, and trumpets, drums, cymbals, and other instruments filled the air with gay and inspiring strains of martial music. Antony followed her in a galley little less splendid.

Cleopatra was flushed with triumph. Accompanied by one of the most renowned generals of the world, she proudly threatened the powerful Roman capital, and even dared to imagine that she could subdue the world and reign sole mistress of the greatest kingdoms of the earth.

Octavius Cæsar had only two hundred and fifty ships, and eighty thousand foot and twelve thousand horse. But his war-galleys were perfectly manned with experienced seamen, and his troops were old veterans in many illustrious wars.

By the advice of Cleopatra, Antony determined to risk all in a naval battle rather than a land conflict. Had he chosen the latter, his superior numbers might have turned the tide in his favor.

The important battle was fought upon the 2d of September, in the Gulf of Ambracia, near the city of Actium. While the battle was raging, and Antony’s chances of success were equal with those of Cæsar, Cleopatra turned and fled in fright, drawing after her the entire Egyptian squadron.

Antony, perceiving her flight, forgot everything in his wild impulse to follow her; and turning his galley, he ignominiously pursued her, leaving his soldiers to carry on the conflict. So bravely did they fight, even after this shameful desertion of their leader, that Cæsar with great difficulty gained the victory.

When Cleopatra perceived that Antony was following her, she commanded her admiral to stop her galley until Antony reached its side, when Antony was taken on board. But so great was his mortification and remorse that he would neither see her nor speak to her for three days; after which time she regained her old ascendancy, and they returned to Alexandria, where they gave themselves up anew to pleasure and feasting, even though they knew that Cæsar was already pursuing them.

Cleopatra now formed a very extraordinary design. She ordered that her ships, which were in the Mediterranean Sea, should be carried over the isthmus into the Red Sea; and she then determined to take all her treasures, and escape beyond the reach of Cæsar. But the Arabians having burned several of her ships, she abandoned the plan. She now resolved to be treacherous to Antony, and to gain the favor of Cæsar. Though she loved Antony to madness, her ambition was stronger than her love. She thereupon persuaded Antony to send ambassadors to Cæsar to sue for peace; and with them she sent officers of her own, who were bribed to treat separately with Cæsar on her behalf. Octavius Cæsar gave her reason to hope, if she would sacrifice Antony to him.

Now followed a time of vacillating love and ambition, despair and dissimulation. To dispel Antony’s suspicions she increased her caressing attentions, and spent her time in providing the most extravagant banquets and amusements.

Meanwhile, with a presentiment of her impending doom, she made special studies of all sorts of poisons, to discern, if possible, which would occasion the most speedy and painless death. She also experimented regarding the effects of the bites of the most poisonous reptiles and insects, using for her victims animals or condemned prisoners. At length she discovered that the asp was the only one whose bite occasioned neither torture nor convulsions, the victim being speedily stupefied, and dying in a seemingly painless sleep.

Antony and Cleopatra now formed a new compact, called “Synapothanumenon,” signifying the order and agreement of those who will die together, in substitution for their former order of existence, called “Amimetobion,” meaning “no life comparable.”

News at length reached Alexandria that Cæsar had appeared before Pelusium, and that the city had fallen into his hands. It is said that this capture was obtained through the treachery of Cleopatra, who sent secret word to her governor there to surrender the place. Then, to clear herself from the rumors of this treason, she put the wife and children of the governor into Antony’s hands that he might revenge himself by putting them to death. Thus had vice and ambition robbed this Egyptian queen of all the charms of innocence and womanly tenderness, until she had become almost fiend-like in her cruelty and selfishness. Thus can the spirit of selfish ambition become a serpent in the heart, poisoning all its nobler aspirations. The beautiful, fascinating Cleopatra was fast becoming as great a monster of crime as her atrocious ancestors.

Adjoining the temple of Isis, Cleopatra had caused a magnificent tomb to be built for herself, and thither she ordered all her most precious treasures to be brought. She there stored her gold, silver, jewels, ebony, ivory, and a large quantity of costly perfumes and aromatic woods. She also sent to this mausoleum an immense quantity of flax, tow, torches, and other combustibles, which she ordered stored in the lower apartments of the tomb, that they might be in readiness should she determine to destroy herself and treasures by fire rather than allow them to fall into the hands of her enemies.

Cæsar, hearing of these preparations made by the Egyptian queen, was fearful lest she might escape him, with all her treasures, and constantly sent her messages offering her promises of generous treatment when he should reach Alexandria.

Antony, knowing nothing of this double dealing, prepared for a good defence. Cæsar had now advanced to the city, and encamped near the Hippodrome. Antony made a vigorous sally; and having severely repulsed the enemy, he returned victorious to the city. But this was the last effort of his expiring valor. On the morrow, after spending the night at a magnificent banquet provided by Cleopatra in honor of his recent success, Antony resolved to attack Cæsar by sea and land. Having drawn up his land force, he stood with them on an eminence, watching the advance of his galleys, which were to make the first attack. What was his horror and chagrin, however, to behold Cleopatra’s admiral strike his flag, and go over with his entire fleet to the enemy. This treason opened the eyes of Antony to the perfidy of the queen. With one expiring impulse of warlike valor, he sent to challenge Cæsar to single combat. But Cæsar sent answer, that if Antony was weary of life, there were other ways to die. Finding himself thus ridiculed by Cæsar and betrayed by Cleopatra, Antony rushed in wild rage to the palace to avenge himself upon the perfidious woman for whom he had bartered country and honor. Any excuse which we might have made for the actions of Cleopatra heretofore, on the plea that she was impelled by her mad love for Antony, can no longer shield her treachery and crime. It is poor Antony now who, in spite of all his outrageous conduct, claims our sympathy. He had bartered everything in life for the love of this woman, only to find himself basely deserted by her in his hour of greatest trouble. Her selfish ambition was paramount to her love, and overshadows her last days with infamy.

Cleopatra, foreseeing that Antony would seek her in a rage, upon discovering her treachery, had retired into her tomb, with two women attendants, and caused Antony to be told that she had killed herself. No sooner had Antony heard this news than his hate was again conquered by his love, and lamenting her death with sobs and tears, he shut himself up in his palace, with one slave, named Eros. He thereupon commanded Eros to plunge his dagger into his heart, as he no longer desired to live. But the faithful slave, unwilling to obey this dreadful command, took the dagger, but stabbed himself with it, and fell dead at his master’s feet. Antony then exclaimed, “Shall a slave and a woman teach me how to die!” and immediately thrust his sword into his side, and fell bleeding to the floor.

Just then an officer arrived, who had been sent by Cleopatra to inform him that she was not dead, as reported. As soon as Antony heard the beloved name of Cleopatra, he opened his dying eyes and begged to be taken to her, that he might expire in her arms. Bleeding and dying, he was carried to her tomb. Even then Cleopatra’s selfish fear overcame her love, and she would not allow the doors to be opened, lest her enemies might surprise her; but she appeared at a high window, from which she let down ropes to draw him up. Antony was made fast to the ropes by his attendants below, and then Cleopatra and her two women, who were the only persons with her in the tomb, endeavored to draw up the dying Antony. It was a piteous sight. With his eyes even now glazed in death, Antony cast an imploring look upon the face of the woman whom he loved more than life or earthly honors. The handsome face of the Egyptian queen was distorted by her grief and her severe efforts to draw up the bleeding body of the dying Antony. When they had lifted him within the window, Cleopatra laid him on a bed, and bathed the blood from his face, caressing him with fond kisses, and calling him endearing names. While she thus wailed and mourned, she cut off his hair, according to an Egyptian superstition that it afforded relief to the dying. Antony, recovering consciousness for a few moments, sought only to comfort her, telling her he died happy, as he was in her arms.

“And for thee, star-eyed Egyptian!

Glorious sorceress of the Nile,

Light the path to Stygian horrors

With the splendors of thy smile.

Give the Cæsar crowns and arches,

Let his brow the laurel twine;

I can scorn the Senate’s triumphs,

Triumphing in love like thine.

Isis and Osiris guard thee!

Cleopatra, Rome, farewell!”

Cæsar allowed Cleopatra to bury Antony with royal honors; and afterwards he went himself to pay her a visit. He found Cleopatra overwhelmed with grief. She had refused food, and endeavored to starve herself to death; but Cæsar had sent her word that he would put her children to death if she should harm herself, and so she had reluctantly allowed herself to be ministered unto by her physician. But she had bruised her face, arms, and breast in her paroxysms of grief, and when Cæsar entered her apartment, he was shocked at her appearance. Her hair was loose and disordered, her countenance wild and haggard, and her arms and breast horribly disfigured with wounds and bruises, while her former lustrous eyes were red and swollen by excessive weeping.

At first, Cleopatra endeavored to vindicate her conduct; but finding that Cæsar was not awed by her hitherto irresistible power, she broke down completely, and with tears and lamentations sought to appeal to his pity. Cæsar assured her that she would be treated with kindness and generosity, and he left her, thinking that she desired to live, and that his coming triumph would be graced by her presence.

“Octavius little knew the subtle intrigues of Cleopatra. She had deluded him; not he, her. The waning charms of Cleopatra, dimmed by grief and sorrow, might not appeal to the sensuous side of Octavius’s nature, but he was not proof against the subtle and practised skill of her mental abilities, by which she wielded the judgments of men according to her will.”

Cleopatra now determined to destroy herself, that she might not have to endure the ignominy of serving as an ornament to Cæsar’s triumphal celebrations when he returned to Rome. Once before, Cæsar had sent a messenger to speak with her at the door of her tomb, while a second officer placed a ladder against the wall and entered her window, as he had been ordered to search her apartment, lest she had some weapons concealed with which she might harm herself. Whereupon, one of her women cried out, “O unfortunate Cleopatra, you are taken!” Cleopatra, seeing the officers, drew a dagger from her girdle, and was about to stab herself, but the officer caught her arm and took from her the weapon, and afterwards searched the room and shook her robes, lest she should have concealed some other weapon or poison with which she could destroy herself. A guard was then set in her tomb, to watch her constantly. But with all these precautions, Cleopatra outwitted them. She sent to Cæsar, and begged that he would allow her to go and pay the last honors at the tomb of Antony and take her final leave of him.

Cæsar having granted this request, she went with her women, bearing chaplets and wreaths of flowers, which they placed upon the tomb amidst wailings and lamentations. When Cleopatra returned to her apartments after this sad ceremony, she appeared more composed than usual. After taking a bath, she arrayed herself with all her queenly magnificence; and having ordered a sumptuous repast, served with the customary splendor, she partook of it with seeming calmness.

Afterwards, ordering all attendants to retire from her presence, with the exception of two trusty waiting-women, she wrote a letter to Cæsar, and then asked for a basket of figs which a servant had just brought to her.

When the guards stopped him at the door, he displayed the fruit, and declared that the queen desired them for her dinner; and thus they were allowed to be sent in.

After Cleopatra had examined the figs, she laid down upon her couch, and soon after appeared to have fallen asleep. The poison from the bite of the asp, which had been carefully hidden amongst the figs, and which had stung her upon the arm, which she held to it for that purpose, immediately reached her heart, and killed her almost instantly, and without seeming pain.

When Cæsar received her letter, in which Cleopatra requested that she might be buried by the side of Antony, his suspicions were aroused, lest she contemplated killing herself, and he sent officers quickly to her apartments. But when they opened the doors, they found Cleopatra lying dead upon her bed of gold, arrayed in all her royal robes, and one of her women already lying dead at her feet.

The other attendant, named Charmian, was arranging the diadem upon the brow of her beloved mistress, and decking her form with flowers.

Seeing which, one of the soldiers exclaimed:—

“Is that well done, Charmian?”

“Very well,” she replied, “and meet for a princess descended from so many noble kings.”

As she spoke these words, she, too, fell dead at her mistress’s side. Both of these faithful slaves had probably poisoned themselves, also, that they might die with their much-loved queen.

Cleopatra was buried in royal state by the side of Antony, according to her request.

Cæsar, deprived of her much-desired presence in his triumphal procession, ordered a statue of gold to be made of the famous Egyptian queen, which was carried before his chariot in his after-triumphs. The arm of this statue was adorned with a golden asp, signifying the supposed cause of Cleopatra’s death.

Cleopatra died at thirty-nine years of age, having reigned twenty-two years. Cæsar caused all the statues of Antony to be thrown down; but those of Cleopatra were spared, as an officer who had been many years in her service paid one thousand talents that they might not be destroyed.

After Cleopatra’s death Egypt was reduced to a province of the Roman Empire. The reign of the Ptolemies had continued two hundred and ninety-three years.

Cæsario, the son of Cleopatra and Julius Cæsar, was put to death by Octavius Cæsar; but her younger children were taken to Rome and treated with kindness.

Thus perished the famous Cleopatra, whose marvellous attractions and enchanting fascinations of beauty and unequalled display of pomp and royal magnificence make parts of her story to read like the wonderful tales of the Arabian Nights; but whose selfish ambition, treachery, and sins shrouded her last terrible end in the impenetrable blackness of hopeless despair.

ZENOBIA.
A.D. 260.

“She had all the royal makings of a Queen.”—Shakespeare.

LIKE an enchanted island rising suddenly before the vision in mid-ocean, so did superb Palmyra of the East burst upon the sight in the midst of an ocean of sands, and cause the tired traveller, who had toiled painfully across the weary wastes of the Syrian desert, to pause spellbound and enraptured before the picture of unrivalled loveliness which suddenly met his gaze, as he looked towards the high land and waving groves of palm-trees which marked the site of the magnificent Palmyra, “the Tadmor in the wilderness,” said to have been founded by Solomon as a resting-place for caravans in the midst of the trackless desert.

Over sixteen hundred years ago this famous city flourished, in the zenith of its gorgeous magnificence. Even Rome paid homage to its power and beauty, and Roman emperors thought it not beneath them to seek alliance with the illustrious sovereign of this alluring realm.

Flanked by high hills on the east, the city filled the entire plain below, as far as the eye could reach, both north and south. Studded with groups of lofty palm-trees shooting up among its temples and palaces of glistening white marble, while magnificent structures of the purest marble adorned the groves which surrounded the city proper for miles in every direction, it appeared at the same time all city and all country; and from a little distance one could not determine the line which divided country from city.

The prospect seemed to the beholder the fair Elysian Fields, for it appeared almost too glorious for the mere earth-born; while from its midst the vast Temple of the Sun stretched upwards its thousand columns of glistening marble towards the heavens, which bent above them its dazzlingly blue vault flooded with the golden effulgence of the mid-day sun, or glowing with the rich tints of an oriental sunset.

This renowned Temple of the Sun was a marvel of man’s architectural skill and genius. It was of dazzling white marble, and of Ionic design. Around the central portion of the building rose slender pyramids,—pointed obelisks,—domes of the most graceful proportions, columns, arches, and lofty towers, innumerable in number, and of matchless beauty. The genius of Greece had contributed to the beauty of this Palm City of the desert, for on every side it was adorned with Grecian art and architecture.

Nor was the Temple of the Sun its only marvel. About half a Roman mile from the temple was situated the Long Portico. This building was devoted to pleasure and trade. Amongst its interminable ranges of Corinthian columns the busy multitudes passed in ceaseless processions, pursuing their various avocations or seeking amusement. Here the merchants assembled, and exhibited their rich stuffs gathered from all parts of the known world. There, also, the mountebanks resorted, and amused the crowds of idle rich with their fantastic tricks. Strangers from all the known countries might have been seen, attired in their varied and picturesque national costumes. A continuous throng of natives from all climes passed to and fro, along the spacious corridors, between the graceful, fluted columns surmounted by the rich entablature whereon were carved the achievements of Alexander.

Nor were these the only points of interest in this fascinating city. The royal palace rose in the midst, so vast, and with so many shining turrets and massive towers, that it seemed a city within a city.

Palmyra was laid out in shady avenues of luxuriant palm-trees, and adorned on either side with magnificent structures of white marble, or of stone equal in dazzling whiteness. Public gardens, groves, and woods stretched beyond the limits of the city, far as the eye could reach; and amidst these cool and green retreats, elegant villas of the rich and luxurious Palmyrenes were scattered so thickly that Palmyra, the Beautiful, the Palm Grove, seemed placed like a gem of matchless charms in the red-gold setting of the desert sands.

Along the roads leading to the city, elephants, camels, and dromedaries laden with merchandise, or gorgeously caparisoned, bearing some noted personage, in strange and brilliant costume, added picturesque dashes of varied color to the landscape.

Just without the walls of the city were the vast arches of the aqueduct which supplied the inhabitants with a river of purest water.

The streets presented a never-ending scene of varied beauty. The buildings of marble; the clean, paved streets; the frequent fountains of water throwing into the perfumed air hundreds of gleaming jets; temples, palaces, and gardens on every side, entranced the eye with their alluring beauty. Arabian horses with jewelled housings, and riders of noble rank; then anon a troop of royal cavalry, with clashing arms and clanging trumpets; with a motley population of Palmyrenes, Persians, Parthians, Arabians, Egyptians, Jews, and Romans, with their varied costumes of glowing colors; here mounted on a camel; there riding a stately elephant; some seated in chariots drawn by white Arabian steeds of peerless beauty, caparisoned with gold and jewels if their owners belonged to royal families,—all these objects fascinated the gaze of the bewildered stranger and riveted the attention of the lover of artistic effects.

Such was beautiful Palmyra in the time of its famous queen, Zenobia. And not less dazzlingly beautiful is the fair queen herself, as she rides through the streets of her royal city, where her adoring subjects flock to do her homage.

See! she is returning from one of her expeditions to her distant provinces, and is just entering her loved Palmyra. As soon as the near approach of their queen is made known to the people, the entire populace flock to the walls to welcome her return. Troops of horse, variously caparisoned, lead the queen’s procession, followed by a train of elephants and camels with gay trappings and heavily loaded. Then come the body-guard of the queen, clad in complete armor of steel, surrounding the royal chariot, which is drawn by six snowy Arabian steeds with gold-mounted harness and bearing waving plumes upon their high-arched heads. As the mid-day sun shines with effulgent splendor upon the scene, the flashing of spears and corselets and burnished chariots and gilded harness sparkle like diamond points. Seated with stately grace in the royal chariot, behold Zenobia! queen of this resplendent realm and mistress of many kingdoms! while the air resounds with the acclamations of the vast multitudes: “Long live the great Zenobia! The blessing of all the gods on our good queen, the mother of her people!”

Right royal is the bearing of the beautiful Zenobia, well fitted in mien and manner for her regal state. Imperial is her brow, and commanding are her dark, lustrous eyes. But she is more than haughty queen; she is a loving woman and a devoted mother, and she looks upon her subjects with the same tender glance of sympathetic regard that she casts upon the beautiful young princess seated by her side. A helmet-crown rests upon her luxurious black hair, which is partly confined in braided locks and partly floating in the breeze. A rich tunic of golden tissue adorns her form, and a mantle of purple silk, fringed with tassels of sparkling jewels and clasped with a dazzling diamond whose value would purchase a province, gracefully enshrouds her left shoulder, leaving her right arm bared above the elbow, where the swelling curves were clasped by shining circlets of glittering gems. Her complexion is dark, though not swarthy, for the smooth brunette skin gleams with ivory tints and deepens to crimson in her rounded cheeks, which time has not wrinkled, even though she has been a matron for many years. When she smiles in loving benediction on her adoring subjects, her red lips part over teeth of dazzling whiteness, and her voice thrills the listener with its rare cadences of melodious tones.

The Palmyrenes were Egyptian in their origin and customs, Persian in their luxurious tastes, Grecian in their language, literature, and architecture. Zenobia claimed descent from the Macedonian kings of Egypt. She fully equalled in beauty her famous ancestor, Cleopatra, and far surpassed her in character and valor. Some accounts state that she was the daughter of an Arab chief, Amrou, the son of Dharb, the son of Hassan; though other writers claim that Zenobia was a Jewess.

She was possessed of rare intellectual powers; was well versed in Latin, Greek, Syriac, and the Egyptian languages. The celebrated Longinus was her instructor, and the works of Homer and Plato were familiar to her, and she wrote with ease in Greek. She compiled an oriental history for her own use, and found constant delight in the arts and sciences when not engaged in the severer pursuits of war.

Zenobia married Odenathus, a prince of great valor and ambition, who was chief of several tribes of the Desert. He rapidly made himself master of the East, and became so powerful that the Romans made him their ally, giving him the title of Augustus and General of the East. He gained several victories, as the ally of Rome, over Sapor, shah of Persia, and twice pursued his armies, even to the gates of Ctesiphon or Ispahan, the Persian capital.

But in the midst of his victories Odenathus was assassinated at Emæsa, while engaged in hunting. His murderer was his nephew, Mæonius. Zenobia revenged the death of her husband by destroying Mæonius, and as her three sons were too young to rule, she first exercised supreme power in their name, but later, declared herself queen of the dominions of her husband, and assumed the royal diadem, with the titles of Augusta and Queen of the East.

Zenobia was remarkable for her courage, prudence, and fortitude, as well as for her intellectual gifts. No danger unnerved her; no fatigue dismayed her.

Her husband, Odenathus, had been a great lover of the chase, and Zenobia always accompanied him upon these expeditions. Disdaining a covered carriage, she rode on horseback in military habit, and pursued with ardor the exercise of hunting, unterrified, though the game might be lions, panthers, and other wild beasts of the desert.

The success of Odenathus in his various wars was in a large measure to be attributed to the marvellous foresight, fortitude, and prudence of Zenobia.

She did not appear to be possessed of those petty passions and weaknesses which female sovereigns have so often displayed. She governed her realm with the most judicious judgment and consummate policy. If it was expedient to punish, she could calm her woman’s heart into manlike stoicism, and silence the promptings of pity. If, on the other hand, it were justice to pardon, she could quell within herself all signs of personal resentment, and display a magnanimous forgiveness.

Though on state occasions she clothed herself and her court with regal magnificence and lavished money with a bountiful hand, apparently regardless of the cost, yet so strict was her economy in all her governmental affairs that she was sometimes accused of avarice. She spent immense sums for the adornment of her beautiful Palmyra, and gathered around her philosophers, poets, artists, and the great and rich from many lands.

As a queen, she was adored by her subjects and admiringly feared by rival sovereigns. As a woman, she was peerless among her cotemporaries, and illustrious among the women of all times. Possessed of striking and alluring beauty, she yet won more admirers for the beauties of her intellect, rather than for her bewitching face and stately form. And her voice, like that of Cleopatra, so charmed the ear by its delicious cadences, that the echo of its melodious tones has been wafted down the ages. As a wife and mother, Zenobia stands far above the dazzling Cleopatra, though she is said to have modelled her warlike exploits after that renowned Egyptian enchantress of the Nile; but she did not emulate her wicked coquetries, nor copy her weaknesses.

Arabia, Armenia, and Persia solicited her alliance, and she added Egypt to the dominions of Odenathus. The emperor of Rome, Gallienus, refused to acknowledge Zenobia’s claim to the sovereignty of her late husband’s dominions, and twice sent an army against her, but was twice defeated by the valorous and undaunted Zenobia. Her dominions extended from the Euphrates to the Mediterranean, and included Jerusalem, Antioch, Damascus, and other cities famed in history. Zenobia, however, made the beautiful Palmyra her place of residence, making expeditions to her other provinces. Her three sons, Timolaus, Herennianus, and Vaballathus, were educated with care; and they were attired in the Roman purple of the Cæsars and brought up according to Roman manners. The appointments of her palaces were gorgeously magnificent, and her style of living most regal; she affected great splendor in her attire, always appearing in royal state, dazzling with jewels, unless at the head of her army or riding in the chase, when she wore military habits, which, however, sparkled with gems; and though an apparent amazon, she was a woman of dazzling beauty and most fascinating presence, and always appeared before her council of war in regal pomp, which secured her an homage from her subjects and her soldiers which amounted almost to a worship which partook of the veneration and admiration accorded to a goddess. She was pure in her manners to the utmost refinement of delicacy, and was as much adored for her womanly virtues as she was admired for her warlike valor. At length the fierce Aurelian became emperor of Rome. He was highly indignant that a woman should dare to claim proud Rome as her ally, and defy his power. Having subdued all his competitors in the West, he turned his arms against this powerful queen of the East, who dared to call herself Augusta and clothe her sons in Roman royal purple. Proudly the Roman emperor approached the dominions of the haughty Zenobia. Rumor announced his coming, and the dauntless queen of Palmyra prepared to meet him. Neither Roman legions nor Roman emperors made her brave spirit quail or her woman’s heart grow faint.

When the first Roman herald reached Palmyra to announce the coming of the Roman ambassadors who had been sent by Aurelian to demand her submission, Zenobia was related to have been at her hunting-villa just without the city. It was in the forests lying to the north of this summer palace that she pursued the wild boar, tiger, or panther in the daring chase. As the messengers of Aurelian arrived at the palace gates, the queen had just returned from the hunt. Never did she look more regal. She was mounted upon a white Arabian steed of peerless beauty, caparisoned with harness gleaming with jewels. Zenobia was leaning upon her long hunting-spear. She wore upon her head a Parthian hunting-cap adorned with a long white plume, fastened by a glittering diamond worth a king’s ransom; her costume was also Parthian, and was most perfectly adapted to display the exquisite proportions of her graceful form. Her dark eyes were flashing with scarcely less brilliancy than the diamond which adorned her brow, as she sat her horse with regal dignity, and her countenance betokened her dauntless pride and warlike courage as the messengers of her enemy were announced. Not waiting to dismount, she exclaimed with tones of imperial command, “Bid the servants of your emperor draw near, and we will hear them.”

Announced by trumpets and followed by their train, the ambassadors of Aurelian advanced to the spot where Zenobia calmly awaited them, surrounded by her royal attendants.

“Speak your errand,” said the queen.

“For a long series of years,” replied the ambassador, “the wealth of Egypt and the East flowed into the Roman treasury. That stream has been diverted to Palmyra. Egypt, Syria, Bithynia, and Mesopotamia were dependents upon Rome, as Roman provinces. The queen of Palmyra was once but the queen of Palmyra; she is now queen of Egypt and of the East,—Augusta of the Roman Empire,—her sons styled and arrayed as Cæsars. By whatever consent of former emperors these honors have been won or permitted, it is not, we are required to say, with the consent of Aurelian. While he honors the greatness and genius of Zenobia, he holds essential to his honor and the glory of the Roman world, that the Roman Empire should again be restored to the limits which bounded it in the reigns of the Antonines.”

“You have spoken,” replied Zenobia to the ambassadors, with a calm voice and steady glance, “with plainness, as it became a Roman to do”; and then her eye flashed with proud disdain as she drew her stately form up to still more lofty proportions, and she continued: “Now hear me, and as you hear, so report to him who sent you. Tell Aurelian that what I am, I have made myself; that the empire which hails me queen has been moulded into what it is by Odenathus and Zenobia; it is no gift, but an inheritance, a conquest, and a possession; it is held, not by favor, but by right of birth and power; and when he will give away possessions or provinces which he claims as his, or Rome’s, for the asking, I will give away Egypt and the Mediterranean coast. Tell him, that as I have lived a queen, so, the gods helping, I will die a queen; that the last moment of my reign and my life shall be the same. If he is ambitious, let him be told that I am ambitious too—ambitious of wider empire, of an unsullied fame, and of my people’s love. Tell him I do not speak of gratitude on the part of Rome; but that posterity will say that the power which stood between Rome and Persia, and saved the empire in the East, which avenged the death of Valerian, and twice pursued the Persian king, even to the gates of his own Ctesiphon, deserved some fairer acknowledgment from an ally whom its arms had thus befriended than the message you now bring from your Roman emperor.”

With proud dignity the ambassadors were then dismissed, and Zenobia prepared to defend her rights and kingdom. Nor did she indolently permit the emperor of the West to approach the gates of her fair Palmyra. With brave rashness she went forth to meet him, and two great battles were fought, one near Antioch, and the second near Emæsa. In both these contests the brave Zenobia herself led her troops to the onslaught, giving the second place in command to her valiant warrior Zabdas, whose great prowess in arms had hitherto made him a successful general. But in both these battles Zenobia was defeated, and she was forced to fall back within the gates of Palmyra. Here she made a brave and last defence. And again she boldly defied Aurelian from her towers, as she had already defied him on the field of battle. So great was her courage and so valiant her defence, that Aurelian was obliged to admit her claims of being a most powerful and determined foe, and thus wrote of her: “Those who speak with contempt of the war I am waging against a woman, are ignorant of both the character and power of Zenobia. It is impossible to enumerate her warlike preparations of stones, of arrows, and of every species of missile weapons and military engines.”

So doubtful was Aurelian of the result of the siege, that he offered terms of an advantageous capitulation to the brave queen of Palmyra; but she indignantly rejected his proposals in a famous Greek epistle, in which she defied his power. Zenobia, expecting reinforcement from her provinces, and thinking that Aurelian, being encamped in a desert, could not long hold out, especially as he was constantly harassed by bands of Arabs attacking his army in the rear, felt confident that the siege would not be prolonged. But Aurelian, incensed by her haughty letter, roused himself to greater vigilance, cut off all her supplies as the several companies of her allies approached, and found means to subsist his army even in the desert. At length the city could hold out no longer. Zenobia determined to fly, and endeavor to raise succor for her beloved city in her surrounding provinces. Such, indeed, was the reason assigned for this apparent cowardice on her part, which was so contrary to her previous record of undaunted bravery. Mounted on the fleetest of her dromedaries, she succeeded in reaching the banks of the Euphrates, but she was pursued and taken captive, and brought into the presence of the Roman emperor. Aurelian sternly demanded how she dared thus defy the power of Rome. Still every inch a queen, and yet not forgetting a wise policy, she replied, “Because I disdained to acknowledge as my masters such men as Aureolus and Gallienus. To Aurelian I submit, as my conqueror and my sovereign.”

While this conference was being held in the tent of the Roman Emperor, the Roman soldiers came rushing in a riotous mass, demanding the instant death of Zenobia. But notwithstanding her previous bravery and fortitude, history records that, in this moment of terrible danger, Zenobia did not display equal courage to the famous Cleopatra, who resolved to die rather than submit to her Roman conqueror. It is stated that Zenobia laid the blame of her obstinate resistance upon the aged Longinus and others of her chief counsellors, in order to save her own life. Whether this were indeed the truth or not, the facts are that the great philosopher Longinus, and other chief men of Palmyra, were put to death by Aurelian, and the life of Zenobia was saved. But for this seeming betrayal of her most faithful subjects, Zenobia may not have been to blame; for the desire to preserve the haughty Queen of the East, in order that she might grace his coming triumph in Rome, was a sufficient reason to account for Aurelian’s conduct in saving her life, and putting to death her chief men, without it being necessary to ascribe to such a brave and noble woman as Zenobia such ignoble and cowardly actions. That she did not take her own life like Cleopatra, but bore her reverses with calm dignity, appears in these more enlightened days to be surely more to her credit than to her dishonor; and in the light of modern civilization, the picture of the beautiful Zenobia, walking with firm step and imperial bearing among the captives of the Roman conqueror, excites deeper feelings of admiration than Cleopatra, the suicide, lying dead upon her royal bed of state.

Palmyra being conquered, Aurelian seized upon its vast treasures, and leaving there a Roman garrison, he started to return to Europe, carrying with him Zenobia and her family. But having reached the Hellespont, tidings came to him that the Palmyrenes had revolted. Aurelian immediately retraced his steps, and arriving before Palmyra, he ruthlessly destroyed that beautiful city, sparing neither old men, women, nor children, in his bloody work of total destruction. The gorgeous buildings were soon smoking heaps of ruins; and though he afterwards repented of his wild fury, and sought to rebuild in part a few of its magnificent structures, it was too late. Palmyra became desolate; and until about a century ago, when some English travellers discovered its ruins, the very site where once stood this beautiful Palm City of the Desert had been completely forgotten.

Upon Aurelian’s return to Rome, his triumph was celebrated with extraordinary gorgeousness and pomp. Vast numbers of elephants, tigers, and other strange beasts from the conquered countries presented a novel sight to the wondering Romans. Sixteen hundred gladiators, who were devoted to the cruel contests of the amphitheatre, followed the line of strange beasts. Then appeared the ensigns of the conquered nations, and the magnificent plate, jewels, and royal robes of the Queen of the East were displayed in immense profusion. Ambassadors of Æthiopia, Arabia, Persia, Bactriana, India, and China, attired in their rich and striking national costumes, revealed the extent of the Roman power. After these came the long lines of captives, including Goths, Vandals, Sarmatians, Alemanni, Franks, Gauls, Syrians, and Egyptians. But every eye was riveted upon the famous Zenobia, Queen of the East. Arrayed in her royal robes, and covered with her blazing jewels, the weight of which was so overpowering as to cause her almost to faint under the burden, she walked before her own magnificent chariot, in which she had hoped to enter Rome as a conquerer, rather than thus walk a captive. Her arms were bound with fetters of gold, which were so heavy that slaves were obliged to assist in supporting them on either side. But though her delicate form was bent by the weight of her galling fetters,—gold though they were,—her proud eyes were undimmed by tears, and her queenly head was carried with imperial grace.

There are two accounts of the after-fate of Zenobia. Some writers state that she starved herself to death, refusing to outlive her own downfall and the ruin of her country. But according to other records, the Emperor Aurelian bestowed upon her a magnificent villa at Tivoli, where she resided in great honor, her daughters marrying into noble Roman families, while her youngest son became king of a part of Armenia.

MATILDA OF FLANDERS.
A.D. 1031-1083.

“The little work-tables of women’s fingers are the playgrounds of women’s fancies, and their knitting-needles are fairy wands by which they transform the whole room into a spirit isle of dreams.”—Richter.

MATILDA of Flanders deserves mention for three reasons. First, because she was the wife of William the Conqueror; secondly, because she was the first consort of the kings of England who was crowned and who received the title of la reine. For, on account of the crime of Edburga in poisoning her husband, Brihtric, king of Wessex, a law was made debarring the consorts of Anglo-Saxon kings from sharing in the honors of royalty. Previously to the time of William the Conqueror, who chose to ignore this law, the wife of the king had simply held the title of “The Lady, his Companion.”

The third reason which has made Matilda of Flanders worthy of mention is on account of the famous Bayeux Tapestry, the work of her own royal fingers, which is still preserved in the cathedral of Bayeux.

MATILDA OF FLANDERS.

Cleopatra and Zenobia are illustrious for their warlike valor and remarkable learning; but Matilda of Flanders has made famous the needle, rather than the sword; and with that little domestic instrument, the industrious fingers of the first Norman queen, assisted by her attendant ladies, gave to the world a very important historical document, whereon was pictorially chronicled the famous Norman conquest of England. And thus the sword of the king and the needle of the queen have become indissolubly associated in the history of this momentous mediæval event.

Matilda was directly descended from Alfred the Great. She was the daughter of Baldwin V., count of Flanders. Her mother was Adelais, daughter of Robert I., king of France.

Matilda was born about the year 1031, and was possessed of much grace of form, as well as an attractive face.

In those days, skill in needle-work was held as the highest accomplishment for ladies of rank, and the remarkable skill in this handicraft, displayed by the four sisters of King Athelstan, is said to have secured for them the addresses of the most eligible princes in Europe.

Matilda had several suitors, but she fixed her heart upon a young Saxon noble named Brihtric, who on account of the fairness of his complexion was called Meaw, meaning “snow.” He was the Lord of Gloucester, and was made envoy at the court of Flanders by King Edward the Confessor.

But he did not return Matilda’s love, and he afterwards married another; this slight Matilda never forgot, and in time she retaliated.

But Matilda, though ignored by the Saxon, was most chivalrously loved by the bravest prince of all the courts—William of Normandy. This prince was the son of Duke Robert, though his mother was of humble birth; but as his father had no other heirs, he declared this child his lawful successor to the ducal throne, and then Duke Robert departed upon his pilgrimage to the Holy Land, from which he never returned.

William was educated at the court of Henry I. of France, where he remained until the Normans sent to claim him as their duke.

At the time when William sought the hand of Matilda of Flanders in marriage, he asserted that Edward of England had named him his heir; but some looked upon this as an idle boast, and fair Matilda seems to have been so little in love with her warlike cousin, that he sued for her for seven years in vain. At last, determining to prove that a “faint heart never won a fair lady,” he resorted to a most uncommon and hazardous mode of courting.

For seven long years he had wooed Matilda, who, absorbed in her vain fancy for the indifferent Lord of Gloucester, turned a deaf ear to brave William’s glowing ardor, until at length he was roused to desperate boldness.

One morning, as Matilda was returning from early mass in the city of Bruges, she was suddenly confronted by the unexpected appearance of Prince William, who, with glaring eyes and lips quivering with intense passion, accused her of loving Brihtric of Gloucester; and as she disdained to deny it he cried in bitter tones:—

“Edward, England’s king, has named me his heir, and by the holy cross, the Saxon churl who dares aspire to thy hand, shall ere long be crushed by the vengeance of our royal resentment.”

“Mighty words, easily spoken, and verily proof neither of greatness nor of valor,” replied the princess; then, laughing aloud in his face with disdainful manner, she continued: “The doubtful Duke of Normandy, monarch of England!—truly, a most excellent joke! But why does not my aspiring and politic cousin declare himself the future emperor of all Christendom?”

Stung by her sarcastic words and the implied insult regarding his birth, Prince William was driven to a frenzy of anger; he seized Matilda, rolled her in a muddy pool near by, and even struck her, in his wild fury, and leaving her fainting upon the ground, he leaped upon his charger, and galloped out of town. Strange wooing, surely! and yet after-events would seem to imply its efficacy. Truly, none but a William the Conqueror would ever again have dared to enter Matilda’s presence. Matilda’s father, incensed at the treatment his daughter had received, made war upon William of Normandy; but the king of Flanders was so badly beaten in the contest that he was glad to make terms of peace with his Norman conqueror. As Brihtric, the Saxon lord, refused to marry the princess of Flanders, Matilda’s love turned to hate, and she received the victor, William, when, with amazing boldness, he renewed his suit, with every mark of courteous forgiveness, and consented to accept him, declaring “that she thought the duke must be a man of the highest courage and most daring spirit, to come and beat her in her father’s city.” “So faithful in love and so dauntless in war,” this brave knight won his bride; and never was wooing so fiercely bold, nor fair lady so strangely won. King Baldwin V. of Flanders was only too ready to receive this brave knight as a son-in-law, and quickly concluded the marriage contract, having already had sufficient experience of the powerful sword of this fierce wooer. Matilda and William were married at Château d’Eu, in Normandy; and her father gave her a rich dower, in lands, money, jewels, and costly trousseau. William then conducted his bride with much pomp to his duchy; and she made her public entry into Rouen in magnificent array. The bridal mantles of William and Matilda, richly adorned with jewels, were long preserved in the treasury of Bayeux Cathedral. As William and Mary were cousins, the Archbishop of Rouen declared that their marriage was illegal, and excommunicated them. But the dauntless William was not to be terrified by any monkish bulls, and appealed to the Pope, who nullified the sentence of the archbishop, and sanctioned their marriage, on condition that they should each build an abbey at Caen, and found a hospital for the blind. This they willingly agreed to do; and Matilda, who possessed much taste in architecture, took great delight in the erection of the stately abbeys of St. Stephens and the Holy Trinity; the former was endowed by William, for the monks, and the latter by Matilda, for the nuns.

Normandy enjoyed peace and prosperity under the wise rule of William and Matilda, who were much beloved by their subjects. Their children were remarkable for beauty and promise, and were carefully educated under their mother’s supervision.

About this time, Harold, brother to Queen Edith of England, was taken prisoner by the sovereign of Ponthieu; and as a brother of Harold had married a sister of Matilda, William compelled the Earl of Ponthieu to release Harold, and then he invited the Saxon prince to Normandy, where he was betrothed to one of the young daughters of William and Matilda, after which Harold returned to England; but no sooner had Edward, king of England, breathed his last, than Harold seized upon the sovereign power, notwithstanding he had made a promise to William of Normandy to assist him in gaining his rights as heir to King Edward.

William thereupon invested Matilda with the regency of Normandy, and associated with her their eldest son, Robert, and prepared to invade England, and assert his claims as the successor of Edward the Confessor.

Unknown to her husband, Matilda had ordered a magnificent ship of war to be built; and when William arrived at the port of St. Vallery, he found this splendid present from his wife awaiting him, and gorgeously adorned in his honor. This ship was called the Mora, and in it William embarked at the head of his fleet.

The Norman fleet reached the port of Pevensey, on the coast of Sussex, in safety; but as Duke William was landing, he fell headlong upon the ground. “An evil sign is this!” exclaimed the superstitious Normans in affright. But the duke, rising with his hands full of sand, cried: “I have seized England with my two hands, and that which I have seized I will maintain.” And most truly did he fulfil this prophecy; and by the bloody battle of Hastings the proud realm of England became the dominion of the Norman conqueror.

Matilda, the Duchess Regent of Normandy, received the welcome news of her husband’s victory while at worship in the Church of Nôtre Dame, near St. Sever. She thereupon ordered that the cathedral should henceforth be called the “Church of Our Lady of Good Tidings.”

William re-embarked for Normandy to rejoin Matilda, in March, 1067; but scarcely had he arrived in his dukedom, ere tidings reached him of a revolt in England. He immediately returned, quelled the insurrection, and then sent for Matilda and their children to join him in England.

Matilda arrived in England with her family soon after Easter. William now made preparations for her coronation. As I have mentioned, former wives of the sovereigns of England had not received this honor. But William the Conqueror would allow no obstacles to defeat his purposes.

Although William had already been crowned in Westminster Abbey, he chose to be now re-crowned at Winchester, that Matilda might be made queen.

It was during the ceremony of Matilda’s coronation that the office of champion was first instituted. During the banquet, a brave cavalier named Marmion, clad in complete armor, rode into the hall and pronounced this challenge:—

“If any person denies that our sovereign lord, William, and his spouse, Matilda, are king and queen of England, he is a false-hearted traitor and liar; and I, as a champion, do here challenge him to single combat.”

This challenge was repeated three times, but no one accepted it; and henceforth Matilda was always addressed as la reine.

But Matilda had never forgiven the slight she had received, as a girl, from the proud Lord of Gloucester; and no sooner had she become queen of England than she determined to take an unworthy revenge, which ever after tarnished her fame.

She obtained from King William the grant of all the possessions of Brihtric Meaw, and caused that unfortunate Saxon, whose only crime had been indifference to her youthful charms, to be imprisoned in Winchester Castle, where he died. She even deprived the city of Gloucester of its charter, and brought ruin to its inhabitants, probably because they had dared bewail the fate of their lord, her enemy.

Queen Matilda now commenced her famous Bayeux Tapestry, illustrating the conquest of England by William the Conqueror. In the cathedral of Bayeux, where it is still preserved, it is called the “Tapestry of Queen Matilda.”

This remarkable piece of canvas is nineteen inches wide and sixty-seven yards in length. Upon it are worked in cross-stitch many hundreds of figures, of men, horses, birds, trees, houses, castles, churches, ships, and battle scenes.

A dwarf artist, named Turold, is supposed to have made the designs for Queen Matilda, and he has cunningly introduced his own effigies and name into the work.

Matilda’s table, while in England, was furnished at the daily expense of forty shillings; and twelvepence each were allowed for the maintenance of her attendants. She received from the city of London oil for her lamp, wood for her hearth, and imports on goods landed at Queenhithe.

At this time, also, the famous curfew bell was established, which was the signal that all lights and fires must be extinguished at eight o’clock in the evening. This was an old Norman custom, but it occasioned great dissatisfaction among the English.

So frequent were the revolts among his English subjects, that at length William thought best to send Matilda and their children back to Normandy, where she resumed the regency. She did not reside in England after this time.

Robert, the eldest son of William and Matilda, now occasioned his parents much trouble. At last the quarrel between father and son resulted in open war.

Matilda, whose excessive partiality for her eldest son much offended her husband, supplied the rebellious Robert with large sums of money; and when means failed her, she even parted with her plate and jewels to aid her favorite child. William was in England when the news reached him of the rebellion of Robert and the part Matilda was taking in the matter, and he immediately set out for Normandy. Upon arriving there, and learning the truth of these rumors, he met his wife with bitter reproaches. There was stern grandeur, not unmixed with tender pity and love, in the harsh words which he addressed to Matilda, which were not entirely unmerited; and there was also a sublime depth of mother’s love in her reply. Fixing his eyes upon the queen, the Conqueror exclaimed with trembling voice:—

“The brightest jewel of my bosom hath pierced my heart with the deadly dart of treachery. Behold, my wife!—the treasure of my soul—to whom I have confided my wealth, my crown, my greatness, my all. She hath supported my rebel son in perfidy, and aided him to raise his sword against his own father.”

“My lord!” replied Matilda, “far be from me to do you wrong. But when you spurn our firstborn and retain from him his rights, you drive him to wretchedness and distraction. Be not surprised if I feel a mother’s tenderness for her child. Nay, so much do I love him, that for his dear sake I would dare any danger, do any deed. Ask me not to enjoy the pomp of royalty while he is pining in want and misery; as a loving husband, you have no right to impose such insensibility on a mother.”

Robert and his father met in battle at Archembraye; and in the contest Robert unhorsed his father, and, unconscious as to whom he had defeated, was about to pierce him with his sword, when he recognized his foe, and fell at his feet begging forgiveness, horrified at the thought of how nearly he had committed the awful crime of parricide. A reconciliation took place, and Robert accompanied William to England.

Matilda’s last years were embittered by domestic troubles. She remained in Normandy. The death of her daughter Constance and renewed quarrels between Robert and his father, added to her own failing health, quickened her decline. She died at Caen, in November, 1083. Her husband hastened from England when informed of her danger, and arrived as she breathed her last. She was interred in the Church of the Holy Trinity at Caen. William the Conqueror survived her only four years, when his death was occasioned by an accident during the storming of the city of Nantes, when his horse stumbled over some burning timber, and throwing the king violently forward in the saddle, he was so seriously injured as to result in his death. William the Conqueror was buried in the Church of St. Stephen at Caen. The portraits of William and Matilda were painted upon the walls of St. Stephen’s chapel.

William was remarkable for his great strength and imposing beauty. He was a head taller than all his subjects. The face of Queen Matilda was beautiful and delicate. Their two sons, William Rufus and Henry, reigned successively over England. Robert died in prison. Their fourth daughter, Adela, was the mother of King Stephen.

In 1562 the Calvinist soldiers broke open the tombs of William and Matilda, hoping to find rich treasures; but finding nothing but a sapphire ring upon Matilda’s finger, they rudely threw the bones carelessly around. In 1642 these relics were collected, and their tombs restored, though at the close of the last century the French Republicans destroyed the monumental memorial of Matilda, which had been there erected by her husband before his death. Thus the needle-work of Queen Matilda has proved to be a more lasting memorial of her fame than the costly monument of marble erected to her memory.

MARGARET OF ANJOU.
A.D. 1429-1482.

“The red rose and the white are on his face,

The fatal colours of our striving houses.”

—Shakespeare.

ONE of the most momentous civil commotions in the annals of English history was the famous War of the Roses, which was waged for many years between the Houses of Lancaster and York, during which sanguine contests the plains of England were deluged with blood; eighty princes were slain, and the ancient nobility were almost entirely annihilated.

With these exciting incidents the name of Margaret of Anjou is indissolubly associated, and she stands forth in history as one of the most important participants in that great civil struggle, which may be thus briefly stated.

Henry VI., the reigning king of England, was the son of John of Gaunt, a younger son of Edward the Third. About this time, the Duke of York, who was descended by his mother’s side from Lionel, an older son of the same Edward, aspired to the throne, and gathering to his standard many powerful nobles, he sought to dethrone King Henry.

The partisans of the House of York chose the white rose for their badge, while the reigning House of Lancaster wore, as their emblem, the red rose.

Previously to this period, Henry, the king of England, had wedded Margaret of Anjou.

This princess was the youngest daughter of René, Duke of Anjou. Her father was the son of Louis II., king of Naples, Sicily, and Jerusalem, and also sovereign count of Provence, Anjou, and Maine.

But though Duke René was heir to so many kingdoms at the time of his daughter’s marriage, he was owner of none; and instead of providing her with a rich dower, suitable to her rank, the marriage stipulations were very peculiar.

Henry VI. of England was twenty-six years of age. His country was impoverished by a thirty years’ war. Margaret was at this time living at Naples, of which realm her father called himself king. Amongst the princesses selected for the approval of the bachelor king of England, none pleased King Henry so well as the beautiful face of Margaret of Anjou, whose portrait had been sent to him for his examination. So overtures were at once made to the father of this lovely princess.

René consented most readily to the marriage, on the condition that the bride’s wedding portion should be only her own lovely charms and superior accomplishments, which he declared were worth more than all the riches of the world.

But this was not all in this strange marriage agreement. René also demanded that Henry should restore to him his patrimonial estates of Anjou and Maine, which had been wrested from him.

Though Margaret’s father possessed so many high-sounding titles, he was in truth a royal pauper. He had been driven out of Naples, England held Anjou and Maine, and in order to pay his ransom to the Duke of Burgundy, who had kept him a prisoner for six years, René had been obliged to mortgage his other dominions, so that now he possessed neither castle nor an acre of ground he could call his own.

The Earl of Suffolk, who had been sent by King Henry to make the marriage settlements, was alarmed to bring back to his sovereign such an unheard-of demand from the father of a portionless bride; but as René would not relent, Suffolk was forced to return to his king with this strange proposal.

Although King Henry was almost as much poverty-stricken as the lovely princess, her fair face so bewitched him that he readily consented to take her, not only without dower, but to relinquish for her the domains of Anjou and Maine.

The Earl of Suffolk was sent back to wed the fair princess as proxy for Henry, and in St. Martin’s church, at Nanci, in November, 1444, Margaret was married by proxy, the bride being in her fifteenth year.

The ceremony was performed in the presence of her aunt, Marie of Anjou, queen of France, and Charles VII. The bride’s father and mother were also present, and all the leading nobles of the courts of France and Lorraine; the mother of the bride being Isabella, claimant of the duchy of Lorraine.

At the nuptial tournaments and festivities, which lasted for eight days, all the knights wore daisies on their helmets; and the bridemaids and other maidens of Lorraine were decked with wreaths and garlands of the same flower, in honor of the bride’s name, “Marguerite,” signifying “the daisy.”

During these wedding festivities, an enlivening incident occurred. Yolante, the elder sister of Margaret, had for a long time been betrothed to Ferry of Lorraine, the heir of Duke Antony, the successful competitor for that dukedom. For some reason René had delayed this marriage; and so, at this auspicious moment, the young prince ran away with his fiancée and married her. Charles VII., king of France, interceded for their pardon, which René was only too willing to grant, as his apparent opposition had only been on account of lack of dower for his daughter.

Margaret now started on her journey to England, to meet King Henry, to whom she had been married by proxy. She was attended by the Marquis of Suffolk, who had been raised to that rank by King Henry, that he might act as his proxy; and Suffolk’s wife, the Countess of Shrewsbury, and many other noble ladies, accompanied the young bride on this momentous journey.

So poor was the fair little bride, and so poverty-stricken was her royal husband, that she had set out with no money and with little apparel; and her royal lord could not forward to her a farthing, until the Parliament, in February, 1445, granted him the half of a fifteenth on all movables.

A rough bridal voyage, indeed, was vouchsafed to this young and beautiful bride. It was five months after her marriage by proxy before she was married to Henry with the usual ceremonies in Tichfield Abbey. Meantime, not only had sea-sickness brought her to a hospital, but there she was attacked by small-pox ere she had recovered from the effects of her voyage. This terrible disease was fortunately very light in her case, for her marriage took place in little more than a week after she had recovered from the short attack.

It is curious to note that the doctor’s bill for attendance, during the voyage and at the time of this sickness, was only three pounds nine shillings and twopence; and this for attending the royal queen of England.

Margaret’s nuptials with Henry VI. were solemnized April 22, 1445. The bridal ring, set with a ruby, was made from the one with which Henry was consecrated at the time of his coronation. The queen received a bridal present of a lion. Her coronation took place May 30, at Westminster Abbey.

But scarcely was the beautiful queen seated upon her royal throne ere troubles gathered thick and fast about her; and she continued to be a victim to misfortune during all the remainder of her life.

The Duke of Gloucester and the rich old Cardinal Beaufort were rival statesmen of England. It had been through Cardinal Beaufort, assisted by Suffolk, that Henry had won the fair Margaret; whereas the Duke of Gloucester had proposed another alliance. For this reason the power of the cardinal was now in the ascendant at court; and through Suffolk, who gradually obtained uncontrolled authority, both in the council and in Parliament, the cardinal possessed immense power over the crown. As the king and queen were still hampered by their impoverished condition, the rich cardinal frequently relieved the pressing needs of the royal pair, and thus secured greater influence over them.

In 1447, the mysterious death of the Duke of Gloucester occurred, and the enemies of Beaufort and the queen asserted that he was murdered by their connivance. But this unjust charge is apparently without the least foundation, as records state that the duke died from illness, probably apoplexy.

During the same year the aged Cardinal Beaufort died, and the king and queen were left without his support, and what was equally important, the aid of his well-filled purse.

King Henry now began to show symptoms of the fearful brain malady which he had inherited from his grandfather, Charles VI. Henry’s ministry, headed by Suffolk, was despised and hated. At this time the government fell mostly into the hands of the young queen of eighteen, who found herself obliged to rely upon Suffolk, who became daily more distasteful to the English people.

In 1448 hostilities with France were renewed, and Charles VII. reconquered Normandy. This was the same king of France, whose coronation at Rheims was secured to him through the brave efforts of the Maid of Orleans, Joan d’Arc, whose romantic story has been so often related. Declaring that she was called by the angel St. Michael and the virgin saints to deliver her country from the English, she led her troops to Orleans, carrying a marvellous sword in her hand, which she said she had been directed to bring from the shrine of St. Catherine; and she succeeded in delivering that city from the siege. This victory prepared the way for the coronation of Charles VII.; but to his eternal disgrace, when this brave maiden was afterwards captured by her enemies, and tried as a witch, he did not make any effort to save her, though to her he owed his crown; and she was burnt at the stake, in the market-place at Rouen.

The loss of Normandy gave great offence to the English, who blamed Queen Margaret, derisively calling her the “Frenchwoman”; and the partisans of the Duke of York attributed their losses to the misgovernment of the queen, and declared that King Henry was more fit for a cloister than a throne, in that he had seemingly deposed himself by leaving; his kingdom in the hands of a woman.

About this time Queen Margaret invested the Duke of York with the government of Ireland. He left a strong party in England, who soon caused the Duke of Suffolk to be impeached and arrested. In order to save his life, the queen persuaded the king to banish Suffolk for five years; but the ship on which he embarked was captured by his enemies, and he was beheaded after a mock trial.

We cannot mention all the contests in this War of the Roses. An insurrection headed by Jack Cade, who called himself Mortimer, arose in Kent. This rebellion was quickly quelled by Henry VI.; but new disasters followed. The Duke of Somerset returned from France, having been defeated in trying to maintain England’s power there. Every province in France, but Calais, was now lost to the English, and for this misfortune the people blamed the poor young queen.

Suddenly the Duke of York came back from Ireland, impeached Somerset in Parliament, and he was sent to the Tower. At this time the badges of the red and the white rose were adopted by the partisans of York and Lancaster. To add to the troubles in which the poor queen was plunged, King Henry’s malady became so great that it could no longer be concealed, and just at this inauspicious time the young Prince of Wales was born. York assumed all the power of the government, and for more than a year the king remained in total ignorance of all that was passing around him, being in a continued state of helpless idiocy. When the prince was about fifteen months old, his father recovered his reason, and his first recognition of his wife and child is thus quaintly described: “On Monday, at noon, the queen came to him, and brought my lord prince with her. Then the king asked, ‘What the prince’s name was?’ and the queen told him ‘Edward’; and then he held up his hands and thanked God thereof. And he said he never knew him till that time, nor wist what was said to him, nor wist where he had been whilst he had been sick, till now. And he asked who were the godfathers; and the queen told him, and he was well content.”

Margaret took immediate measures to secure King Henry’s restoration to sovereign power. Though he was still very weak, the queen caused him to be conveyed to the House of Lords, where he dissolved the Parliament, and restored Somerset to liberty. The Duke of York, aided by Salisbury and Warwick, now raised an army, and drew near to London. King Henry, who hated bloodshed, sent word to the insurgents to ask why they had armed themselves against him. The Duke of York replied that he would not lay down arms unless the Duke of Somerset was delivered up to justice. This the king refused to do, saying “he would deliver up his crown as soon as he would the Duke of Somerset.” Whereupon the Earl of Warwick commenced the attack. The battle was short but bloody. Somerset was killed, and even King Henry was himself wounded by an arrow in the neck. But he would not stir from the scene until he was left alone under his royal banner, when he proceeded very coolly into a baker’s shop near by, where the Duke of York found him, and bending the knee before him in a sort of mock reverence, bade him rejoice that the traitor Somerset was slain. King Henry replied: “For mercy’s sake, stop the slaughter of my subjects!” York then took the wounded king by the hand, and led him first to the shrine of St. Alban, and then to his own apartments. The next day he conducted King Henry, with seeming respect, to London; but in reality the king was the prisoner of the Duke of York. Henry’s distress of mind brought on again his fits of insanity, and in this state he was forced to pardon York and make him Protector. The Duke of York relinquished the care of the imbecile king to Queen Margaret, on condition that she would retire with the king and infant prince to Hertford Castle.

For two years Margaret remained in retirement; but in February, 1456, King Henry again recovered himself sufficiently to enter Parliament and declare himself well enough to resume his royal authority. Parliament allowed his claim, and York was forced to retire.

Again the government was put in the hands of the friends of the queen. Again the health of the king was impaired, but Margaret took him to Coventry, which she called her haven of safety, on account of the favor shown her by the inhabitants there; and at length, King Henry having somewhat recovered, he went to London, and there invited the Duke of York and all his partisans to a pacification banquet and religious ceremony at St. Paul’s cathedral, in which procession it is said that every one walked with an enemy, from the queen down, as Margaret was accompanied by the Duke of York to the altar, where all swore eternal amity.

This amity lasted a year, when an affray broke out amongst the king’s cooks and scullions, who soundly whipped Warwick’s men; whereupon all parties flew to arms, and the battle of Bloreheath, and other skirmishes, were fought.

At this time the Yorkists were defeated, but again they rallied and seized upon London.

The queen once more brought her sick husband to her harbor of Coventry; and, as he regained his strength, she rallied round the banner of the Red Rose many of the heirs of the valiant earls who had fallen at St. Albans, and she induced the king to leave Coventry, and encamp with his army near Sandifford. The Lancastrians and the Yorkists met in battle, July 9, 1460, near Northampton. In the conflict which lasted two hours, ten thousand Englishmen were slain, and King Henry was taken prisoner.

Queen Margaret was not herself in the battle, but was stationed with the young prince, Edward, her son, where she could view the field and communicate with her generals. Perceiving the disastrous result of the contest, Margaret fled with the young prince to a castle in North Wales.

Meanwhile, the Duke of York had taken King Henry to London as his prisoner, and there compelled him to sign an order, commanding Queen Margaret and the prince to return to London under penalty of high treason; and Henry was furthermore forced to acquiesce in an arrangement that he should wear the crown for his life, but that, upon his death, the Duke of York and his heirs should succeed to the right of the throne.

But Margaret was not thus to be ordered by the haughty Duke of York and his party against her royal will. When she received this summons, she was in Scotland, seeking aid from the Scotch king; and her brave answer was to march with a large army against York; and she drove him to his strong castle, where he intended to await the coming of his son Edward, with reinforcements. But Margaret surrounded his castle, and, by challenge and taunts, urged him to come forth to battle. The Duke of York, whose pride was at length stung by the defiant taunts of a woman, gave her battle, and in the contest he was killed.

One of the royalists afterwards cut off the head from the corpse of the Duke of York, and brought this bloody trophy to Queen Margaret, who at first beheld it with horror, and then laughingly said: “Put the traitor’s head on York gate, and take care that room be left for those of the earls of March and Warwick, which, forsooth, shall soon keep him company.”

Queen Margaret now pushed on towards London, flushed with her recent success, determined to rescue King Henry from the power of the Yorkists. The Earl of Warwick came out from the metropolis, bearing in his train the royal prisoner, and met the forces of Queen Margaret on the old battle-field of St. Albans. The Yorkists held the town, but the royalists penetrated the streets, and a hand-to-hand fight ensued. Warwick’s Londoners were no match for the brave Northmen who fought for Queen Margaret, and the Yorkists were forced to fly, leaving King Henry sitting in his tent. Here he was found by Queen Margaret and Prince Edward, and his brave queen and son embraced him with joy; and King Henry thereupon knighted the young Prince of Wales, and many valiant Lancastrians, for their valor. But Margaret’s triumphs did not long continue. St. Albans was won, but not London.

The victorious young warrior, Edward, Earl of March, eldest son of the late Duke of York, who now bore his father’s title, having conquered the Lancastrians in other contests while Margaret routed the Yorkists at St. Albans, now entered London with all the pomp of a triumphant king, and was received by the people with acclamations of delight; for Margaret had injudiciously allowed her Northern men to plunder the English, and had therefore incurred their hatred; so that now she was again forced to seek refuge in the North, while Edward of York was proclaimed king, as Edward IV. In a short time an army of sixty thousand men was raised in behalf of Margaret, and commanded by Henry Beaufort, who was now Duke of Somerset, and another intrepid noble, Lord Clifford, who had killed the youngest son of the Duke of York, and cut off the head from the dead body of the father, in the contest between the Lancastrians and Yorkists, when the Duke of York had been slain. By the advice of these nobles Margaret remained with her husband and son in the city of York; while the army of the Red Rose went forth to battle with the forces of the White Rose, under the banner of the young Edward of York.

The Lancastrians were defeated at Ferrybridge and Towton, and Queen Margaret then fled with King Henry and their son to Newcastle, and from thence to Alnwick Castle. As the Yorkists still approached, she retreated to Scotland. At length Margaret and her son went to France to seek aid from King Louis XI. Upon Margaret’s promising to offer Calais as security, King Louis lent her twenty thousand crowns, and permitted Brezé, of Normandy, to follow her with two thousand men.

With this little army Margaret returned to Scotland and rallied her Scotch adherents; and bringing King Henry into the field, who had previously been hiding at Harleck Castle, the brave, undaunted queen conquered the strong fortresses of Bamborough, Alnwick, and Dunstanburgh.

But her triumph was of short duration. Somerset soon after surrendered the castle of Bamborough to Warwick, on condition that he should receive a pension from King Edward; Suffolk and Exeter also swore homage to the throne of Edward. But notwithstanding these treacheries, Margaret still courageously struggled, and at length succeeded in winning back Somerset and Exeter to the banner of the Red Rose; but Somerset was, after all, a poor support, and in the contest which followed at Hexham his weak generalship caused a total rout of the Lancastrian army. Margaret fled with the young prince to the Scottish border, taking with her all the jewels and treasures she could secure; but these were all stolen from her by a band of banditti who attacked her small company of friends; and while the ruffians, with drawn swords, were fighting for the plunder, Margaret escaped with her son alone in the dense forest: here night closed over them. They had neither of them tasted food since early in the day. To add to her distress, poor Margaret did not know whether her husband was dead or alive, as they had fled from Hexham in different directions. Every tree in that dark forest seemed to the terrified queen’s fancies an armed foe, seeking the life of herself and child. Suddenly, as the moon broke through the obscuring clouds, she perceived a gigantic man advancing towards her. For a moment her heart stood still for very horror, but with the danger came also courage; and, filled with a sudden inspiration of sublime action, she advanced with calm majesty to the outlaw, leading her son by the hand, and with the manner of a queen whose right it was to command, and in tones thrilling with overpowering fervor, she presented her child, saying:—

“Here, my friend, save the son of your king! to your loyalty I intrust him. Take him, and conceal him from those who seek his life. Give him refuge in thine own hiding-place.”

The appeal of the brave queen was not in vain. The outlaw, who chanced to be a ruined Lancastrian, well remembered his much-loved queen. Right royally this knight of the forest received his honored guests; raising the poor tired little prince in his strong arms, he led the way to his hidden cave. Here the royal fugitives were refreshed and waited upon by the wife of the Lancastrian outlaw: this retreat has since been called “Queen Margaret’s Cave.” Here she was found three days after by Brezé and the Duke of Exeter and other friends; and learning from them that her husband was alive, she went with them to Scotland; then finding no safety there, sailed for France. Storms drove her into the dominions and power of her father’s old foe, the Duke of Burgundy. Although Margaret had declared in the days of her prosperity, that if she should ever get the Duke of Burgundy into her power, she would make the “axe pass between his head and shoulders,” nevertheless this family foe showed himself to be a true knight and worthy gentleman, for he not only received her but gave her hospitality; and though he would not listen to her entreaties in behalf of her husband, he gave her twelve thousand crowns, and bestowed many favors upon her companions in distress, and forwarded her in safety to her father’s duchy of Bar. Here for seven years Margaret, no longer a queen, except in name, resided with her son, the prince, in her father’s dominions, who, on account of the ruinous contests in which he and his son were engaged with Aragon, could offer her only an asylum. Her father René was little fitted by nature for the severe and ferocious times in which he lived. He was a poet, artist, and musician of rare talent, and his chansons are still sung by his native Provençals. At length, King Edward of England quarrelled with the Earl of Warwick, one of the strongest supporters of the Yorkists; and that nobleman came to France with others of his adherents to seek the aid of King Louis XI.

Margaret was summoned to the French court, and it was there arranged that she should pawn Calais to Louis XI., and that her son Edward, who was now a youth, should be married to the daughter of the Earl of Warwick, the Lady Anne Nelville. Thus Warwick espoused the cause of the Red Rose, and a new expedition was prepared for the invasion of England. Warwick was at first successful. King Edward fled; Henry VI. was released from his restraint in the Tower, where he had been held as a royal prisoner; but having been treated with kindness, and weary of conflict, he was not overjoyed at his restoration. Margaret prepared to go to England with her son, the Prince of Wales, and his young bride Anne. But furious storms again overtook her, and ere she landed at Weymouth, her fortune had again forsaken her. When the dreadful news reached her of the death of Warwick and recapture of King Henry, she fell in a swoon, and upon regaining consciousness, refused for a long time to be comforted. At length she was visited by Lancastrian nobles, who persuaded her to again unfurl the banner of the Red Rose.

At Tewkesbury the fatal battle was fought which laid the Red Rose in the dust. Upon this battle-field the last hope of the unfortunate queen perished forever. The brave young Prince of Wales was taken prisoner; and being brought into the presence of King Edward, the monarch, impressed with the noble bearing of the youth, inquired “how he durst so presumptuously enter his realms, with banners displayed against him?” to which the prince, with more courage than policy, boldly replied, “To recover my father’s crown and mine own inheritance.” Stung into sudden anger, King Edward struck the intrepid prince in the face with his gauntlet, which was the signal for the cruel men around him to pierce his brave young heart with their sharp daggers. The following day Queen Margaret was brought a prisoner to King Edward, by her old enemy, Sir William Stanley, who had just revealed the terrible fate of her son to the anguished mother, with brutal coldness and abruptness. Smarting under this awful blow, Margaret invoked terrible maledictions upon the head of King Edward; and this same enemy took very good care to repeat these rash words which had escaped the agonized heart of the distracted mother to his royal master, who was so exasperated that he at first determined to put her to death; but as no Plantagenet had shed the blood of woman, he feared to do this bloody deed, and ordered her to be imprisoned in the Tower of London. The same night upon which Margaret of Anjou was placed within its gloomy walls, her husband, whom she had not met for seven long years, was dragged from his cell in the same prison and put to death. At first the imprisonment of Margaret was very rigorous; but through the intercession of King Edward’s wife, Elizabeth of Woodville, who had been one of the ladies in waiting at Queen Margaret’s court, the poor heart-broken sufferer was released from such strict confinement; and at length her impoverished father came to her partial relief, and by sacrificing his inheritance of Provence, he succeeded in securing her release from imprisonment, she having signed a formal renunciation of all the rights her marriage in England had given her.

But this poor faded Red Rose had one more trial to bear. A dry leprosy now attacked the once beautiful Margaret of Anjou, and transformed the lovely “Marguerite,” whose beauty had been celebrated throughout the world, into a loathsome spectacle of horror. For nearly six years she endured a living death in the castles provided by her father for her retreat, until, in 1482, the welcome summons came. She was buried in the cathedral of Angers, and her only memorial was her portrait on glass in a window of the cathedral, which had been painted by her father twenty years before. Maria Louisa, the second wife of Napoleon I., possessed the breviary once owned by Margaret of Anjou: in it was written, “Vanite des vanites, tout la vanite!” Surely a fitting epitaph for the once beautiful, powerful, lovely Margaret of Anjou, queen of England; but alas! afterwards, the fallen, faded, hapless Red Rose of English history.

Among the warm partisans of the Lancastrian cause, was John Grey, afterwards Lord Ferrers, whose wife was the beautiful Elizabeth Woodville, maid of honor at the court of Queen Margaret.

Lord Ferrers lost his life in the War of the Roses; and his widow, the beautiful Lady Grey, afterwards married Edward, son of the renowned Duke of York, the champion of the White Rose.

By this marriage of the Roses, which occurred after Edward had become king of England, as Edward IV., this famous War of the Roses ended in a match of hearts.

CATHARINE OF ARAGON.
A.D. 1485-1536.

“By my troth,

I would not be a queen!

Verily,

I swear, ’tis better to be lowly born,

And range with humble livers in content,

Than to be perk’d up in a glistering grief,

And wear a golden sorrow.”—Shakespeare.

BEAUTIFUL Granada rose like an enchanted city in the midst of the blooming plain, where flourished the citron and the pomegranate, the latter of which gave to the city its euphonious name. Olive groves and vineyards clustered around it and fig-trees hung heavy with their purplish fruit; while orange and lemon groves bent ’neath the rich burden of golden spheres of luscious nectar, intermingled with the snowy blossoms which, half hidden amongst the dark green foliage, filled the air with such exquisite perfume as to make one dream of the ambrosial fields of Paradise. To the north, towered mountains whose lofty, snow-crowned summits seemed to pierce the blue heavens above, and other ranges guarded it on the east and south, while the blue waters of the Mediterranean washed its western shores, and brought trade and commerce to this fair Eden of sunny Spain.

And as picturesque as was this lovely setting, equally picturesque was the quaint and fascinating city, with its gorgeous Alhambra, whose shining turrets loomed high above the surrounding buildings and its spacious courts, adorned by graceful columns and spanned by arched ceilings glowing with varied colors and ornate with quaint design, while through its many corridors Moorish cavaliers and dark-eyed beauties, attired in their picturesque costumes, passed in a fascinating procession and lent the charm of life to this weird scene.

But war had invaded this fair realm. For long years it had been besieged by hostile hosts, who strove to drive the Moors from their enchanting dominions. Already the city of Santa Fé had arisen, as though by magic, around the besieged city of Granada, and Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain at length entered the gorgeous Alhambra as conquerors, and the last sigh of the departing Moors echoed amid the fragrant orange groves, in a ghostly wail of hopeless despair.

It was on the 6th of January, 1492, that Isabella and Ferdinand made their triumphal entry into the conquered city, and the standard of the Cross and the banner of Castile were seen floating together on the lofty watch-tower of the glorious palace of the Alhambra. Upon this momentous occasion, the little Catharine of Aragon, then seven years of age, accompanied her parents and sister in the imposing procession.

This pretty Spanish princess had first opened her eyes upon this world at the small town called Alcala des Henares, while Isabella, her mother, was journeying to spend Christmas at Toledo, then the capital of Spain.

Her infant days were spent in camps of war, for the illustrious Isabella accompanied her husband Ferdinand upon all his expeditions, and by her presence and counsel inspired the Christian soldiers to those deeds of valor which gained the victory over the Moors.

QUEEN CATHARINE.

It was this same Isabella of Castile, who first instituted regular military surgeons, to attend the sick in the armies and be at hand on the field of battle to care for the wounded. These surgeons were paid out of her own revenues; and she also provided spacious tents, furnished with beds and all things requisite for the sick and wounded, which were called the “Queen’s Hospital.”

Thus, to the compassionate heart of the famous Isabella of Castile, the world is indebted for the first army hospital, which institution has since proved such a blessing to mankind, in the saving of innumerable lives, and in some slight measure alleviating a part of the frightful evils of war.

After the fall of Granada, Ferdinand and Isabella took up their residence in the magnificent Alhambra, and it was in this fascinating place that the childhood of Catharine of Aragon was passed.

It was from Granada, this fairy-land of her youthful memories, that Catharine derived her device of the pomegranate. The pomegranate was the royal insignia of the Moorish kings. The motto afterwards adopted by Queen Catharine, “Not for my crown,” was also derived from the same source; for the crown of the pomegranate is worthless and is always thrown away.

What strange contrast in the two pictures portrayed in the life of Catharine by the unforeseen vicissitudes of fortune. The blooming maiden, filled with ecstatic pleasure by the alluring fascinations of the matchless scenes around her, now wandering with childish curiosity through the glowing courts of the glorious Alhambra, or enjoying the sylvan retreats amidst the orange and citron groves, or seeking the cool shade of the pomegranate trees, presents a very different picture to the neglected queen of England, cruelly banished by her atrocious husband, to die in loneliness and even penury.

When the Princess Catharine was nine years of age, she was betrothed to Arthur, Prince of Wales, eldest son of Elizabeth of York and Henry VII.

The correspondence of these youthful lovers was carried on in Latin, that they might improve themselves in that language.

In 1501, Catharine embarked with her Spanish governess and four young court ladies, attended by a train of lords and ecclesiastics, to go to England to be united in marriage to Prince Arthur. The marriage was celebrated Nov. 14, 1501.

Catharine’s bridal costume was a great surprise to the English ladies. The Spanish princess and her ladies had previously astonished the English populace, when, according to an English fashion, they made their equestrian public entry into London. The large round hats worn by Catharine and her donnas upon that occasion had created much comment.

“At her bridal Catharine wore upon her head a coif of white silk, with a scarf bordered with gold and pearls and precious stones, five inches and a half broad, which veiled the greater part of her visage and her person. This was the celebrated Spanish mantilla. Her gown was very large; both the sleeves and also the body had many plaits, and beneath the waist certain round hoops, bearing out the gown from the waist downward. Such was the first arrival of the farthingale in England, revived at times as hoop petticoats and crinolines. In the elaborate pageantry the princely pair were very prettily allegorized, she as ‘My Lady Hesperus,’ and he as ‘The Star Arcturus,’ from which the Celtic name of Arthur is derived.”

The old chronicles thus describe the gorgeous marriage ceremony:—

“Within the church of St. Paul’s was erected a platform or stage, six feet high, and extending from the west door to the uppermost step of the choir; in the middle of this platform was a high stand like a mountain, which was ascended on every side with steps covered over with red worsted.

“Against this mountain on the north side was ordained a standing for the king and his friends; and upon the south side was erected another standing, which was occupied by the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of London.

“Then, upon the fourteenth of November, being Sunday, Prince Arthur and the Infanta Catharine, both clad in white satin, ascended the mountain, one on the north and the other on the south side, and were there married by the Archbishop of Canterbury, assisted by nineteen bishops and abbots. The king and the queen and the king’s mother stood in the place aforenamed, where they heard and beheld the solemnization, which, being finished, the archbishop and bishops took their way from the mountain across the platform, which was covered under foot with blue ray cloth, into the choir, and so to the high altar. The prelates were followed by the bride and bridegroom. The Princess Cecily bore the train of the bride, and after her followed one hundred ladies and gentlewomen in right costly apparel. Then the Mayor, in a gown of crimson velvet, and his brethren in scarlet, went and sat in the choir whilst mass was said. The Archbishop of York sat in the dean’s place and made the chief offering, and after him came the Duke of Buckingham. The mass being finished, Arthur publicly dowered his bride, at the church door, with one-third of his income as Prince of Wales; and afterwards the prince and princess were conducted in grand procession out of church into the bishop’s palace, where a grand feast was prepared, to which the Lord Mayor and Aldermen were invited.

“The city functionaries were served with plate valued at one thousand two hundred pounds, but the plate off which the princess dined was of solid gold, ornamented with pearls and precious stones, and worth twenty thousand pounds.

“It was wonderful to behold the costly apparel and the massive chains of gold worn on that day. Sir Thomas Brandon, the master of the king’s horse, wore a gold chain, valued at one thousand four hundred pounds. Rivers, the master of the king’s hawks, wore a chain worth one thousand pounds, and many of the other chains worn were worth from two to three hundred pounds each. The Duke of Buckingham wore a robe of the most beautiful needle-work, wrought upon cloth of gold tissue and furred with sable, worth one thousand five hundred pounds; and Sir Nicholas Vaux wore a gown of purple velvet, so thickly ornamented with pieces of massive gold that the gold alone, independent of the silk and fur, was worth one thousand pounds.”

In honor of this marriage, tournaments, and festivals, and most gorgeous pageants, followed by banquets and grand balls, were celebrated for many days.

But clouds soon gathered around Catharine. In about four months after the marriage, while Prince Arthur and Catharine were residing at the Castle of Ludlow, in Wales, the young prince sickened and died; and the poor young princess was left a widow in a strange land. Catharine was now escorted back to London, where she was received with kindness by Queen Elizabeth, her mother-in-law. But the kind queen died in two years and Catharine’s troubles began regarding her great dower. Her father, Ferdinand of Spain, had promised to give as a marriage settlement two hundred thousand crowns. Only one instalment of this had been paid, and until the whole amount was received, Henry VII. refused to allow his daughter-in-law the revenue Arthur had given her as her marriage gift.

And now began intrigues and quarrels over this poor little widow of sixteen. First King Henry VII. determined to marry her himself, but this proposal Catharine would not accept. Next it was proposed to marry her to the king’s son Henry, now become Prince of Wales. As this proposition was not refused by Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, the helpless young stranger was obliged to submit, and as her father would not pay her dower until the matter was settled, and as her father-in-law would not allow her the revenue from her late young husband, the poor little princess was reduced to great extremities. She needed clothes, she had no means of paying her servants, and neither king seemed to have pity upon her. Her mother, Isabella of Spain, sympathized deeply with the sorrows of her child, but she was now dying and could do little to help her.

At length it was decided that Catharine, now nineteen years of age, should be betrothed to Henry, who was then fourteen. But before this marriage was consummated, Isabella of Spain had breathed her last. Well for her mother-heart that she did not know the terrible trials in store for her beloved child, consequent upon this unfortunate marriage!

The death of King Henry VII. in 1509, prevented all display upon the occasion of this second marriage of Catharine of Aragon, which occurred at Greenwich Palace, June 11, 1509, just three months after the death of Henry VII. From various records it is evident that Henry VIII. loved his wife Catharine quite devotedly at this time. In his letter to his bride’s father he wrote, “that if Catharine and he were still free, he would choose her for his wife before all other women.”

The long-disputed marriage portion was now paid by Ferdinand of Spain, and Queen Catharine, in writing to him, tells of her joy in at last being able to pay her ladies their salaries which had been so long due. In 1510, a prince was born, but he lived but a few days, much to the sorrow of King Henry and Queen Catharine. Another baby prince also died before the birth of the Princess Mary, in 1516.

“The reign of Henry VIII. is characterized by three great movements, which have all left a profound impression upon the destinies of England: the religious reform; the establishment of the absolute power of the crown in principle and often in practice; the social and even political progress of the nation, notwithstanding great outbursts of tyranny on the part of the government, and of servility on the part of the people. The history of this reign is naturally divided into two periods: Henry VIII. under the influence of Wolsey, his favorite and soon his prime minister; Henry VIII. alone, after the disgrace and death of Wolsey.”

Of course, regarding this political aspect of this epoch in history, we can make little or no mention in this short sketch of Catharine of Aragon.

Wolsey, “the Ipswich butcher’s son, the politician priest,” became the chief favorite of Henry and Catharine, although, after he had been the means of securing the execution of the queen’s friend, Buckingham, Catharine was opposed to him.

HENRY VIII.

After the painting by Hans Holbein in the possession of His Majesty, the King of England, at Windsor Castle.

We must not pass over the meeting of the French and English sovereigns upon the famous “Field of the Cloth of Gold.” This occurred in 1520, at Ardres, a small town near Calais. A very magnificently decorated palace had been prepared for the English king. It was built of wood, and adorned with gigantic figures, representing savages armed with spears and arrows, bearing Henry’s device, “Cui adhaereo praestat” (He whom I support prevails).

Fountains of red and white wine played constantly before this sumptuous abode of the English king, which was adorned with costly tapestries and magnificent gold and silver plate.

A gorgeous tent of cloth of gold had been prepared for the meeting of the two sovereigns. It was ornamented with blue velvet studded with stars, fastened with silken cords mixed with Cyprian gold. Into this glistening pavilion the two kings walked arm in arm; and thereupon began a round of feasting, drinking, music, dancing, and amusements, which lasted a fortnight. The extravagant splendor of this occasion has become renowned; and, in the midst of all these licentious revelries, Cardinal Wolsey celebrated high mass with imposing pageantry. It is recorded that it took years for the estates of many a nobleman to recover from the loans contracted to make a good appearance upon this famous Field of the Cloth of Gold.

In 1521 Henry VIII. determined to defend the Catholic faith against the attacks of Martin Luther. King Henry had no other weapon to use against the monk except his pen. Whereupon Henry published “A Defence of the Seven Sacraments against Martin Luther.” This was gorgeously bound, and presented with much ceremony to Pope Leo X. Thereupon the royal author received the title, from the holy father, of “Defender of the Faith,” of which title the royal hypocrite made strange use afterwards. Meanwhile, the haughty Cardinal Wolsey became more arrogant and overbearing. Having the royal ear, even princes and nobles fawned upon him in menial attentions, and high titled lords served the pompous cardinal on their knees, and deemed it a privilege to do his august bidding. But Wolsey’s fall was soon to come, and would be as direful as his power was now ascendant.

In 1522 the beautiful Anne Boleyn was recalled from France to England, and became one of Queen Catharine’s maids of honor. From this time troubles fell thick and heavy upon the poor queen, who was herself a faithful wife and loving mother, and was, moreover, self-denying and devout. And, strange as it may appear, up to this time, such had been the life of King Henry and Queen Catharine that they had become famous as a pattern couple; and the celebrated Erasmus had said of them: “What household is there, among the subjects of their realms, that can offer an example of such united wedlock? Where can a wife be found better matched with the best of husbands?”

We can hardly imagine the atrocious Henry VIII. ever to have been worthy of such commendation. After being married for seventeen years to his devoted Catharine, this prince of hypocrites is all at once troubled with most grievous qualms of conscience. For seven years he had been flirting with the pretty Anne Boleyn; even from the momentous time when he had noticed her dancing at the festivals attending the celebrated occasion of the Field of the Cloth of Gold. But not until 1527 did this conscience-troubled king declare publicly his very serious doubts as to the validity of his marriage with Catharine, who had been previously married to his elder brother Arthur. His pretended scruples were now confided to Cardinal Wolsey, who advised the king to sue for a divorce. This welcome advice the royal hypocrite most sanctimoniously declared to be most bitter for him to follow, but nevertheless, for his conscience’ sake, he was ready to make this enormous sacrifice.

The famous divorce court at Blackfriars was not held until June 18, 1529. But the conscience-stricken, atrocious dissembler meanwhile used his utmost influence in church and state to force priests and people to confirm his royal pretended scruples; and earls, bishops, cardinals, and popes, were called upon to confirm and applaud his most holy zeal, in thus sacrificing his supposed heart’s ease for the ease of his terribly burdened conscience. Meanwhile, the poor, neglected, faithful wife was openly and shamelessly discarded for the smiles of the new beauty, who had ensnared the fancy of this most atrocious of religious humbugs.

To allay somewhat the fretful anxieties consequent upon the long delay required to bring right-minded men to second his infamous designs, the royal author found solace in his literary occupations, hurling anathemas against the undaunted Luther, ostensibly in defence of that Church whose Pope he wished to influence in favor of his own guilty schemes; but soon this apparently zealous defender of the Romish Church was uncloaked, and he defied even the Pope himself, who dared to denounce his infamous divorce.

We cannot give in detail these stirring but disgraceful scenes. Poor Catharine, a stranger in a strange land, having lost both father and mother, had none to defend her against the calumnies which her inhuman husband sought to fasten upon her, but which her blameless life rendered utterly harmless.

King Henry VIII. had taken very good care to make very specious excuses for the divorce. As six children had been born and none had lived beyond infancy, except the Princess Mary, he declared that he found proof of the wrath of God in these bereavements, because he had married his brother’s widow. And this prince of dissemblers declared in a great meeting of his nobles, councillors, and judges, whom he had assembled in the great chamber of his palace at Bridewell, that, “As touching the queen, if it be adjudged by the law of God that she is my lawful wife, there was never anything more acceptable to me in my life, both for the discharge of my conscience and also for her sake; for I assure you all that, apart from her noble parentage, she is a woman of great virtue, gentleness, and humility. Of all good qualities appertaining to nobility, she is without comparison; and if I were to marry again, presuming the marriage to be good, I would choose her before all other women.” And yet this same ostentatious pattern of perfection and hypocritical religious cant afterwards beheaded the illustrious Sir Thomas More, because he would not sanction the infamous repudiation of the faithful Catharine. And this same pretended Defender of the Church, even though the Pope was hurling from the Vatican his spiritual thunders of excommunication for the sin of renouncing the devoted and blameless Queen Catharine, defiantly married Anne Boleyn, even before the divorce had been fully consummated.

In 1529 Queen Catharine was summoned into court to meet her public sentence. When the crier called, “Henry, king of England, come into court,” he answered from his royal seat of state, in loud tones, “Here,” and thereupon proceeded to make known his many troubles regarding his tender conscience and religious scruples, which so sore distressed his royal mind; ending in a panegyric upon the many virtues of his beloved wife, Catharine, from whom none other cause than his afflicted conscience would ever have forced him to consent to part.

After this arch-traitor to all domestic faithfulness had thus relieved his burdened heart, the crier summoned, “Catharine, queen of England.” Taking no notice of the surrounding legates, the sorrowful queen rose with graceful dignity, and, followed by her ladies, she went round about the court, even to where the king sat, and kneeling at his feet she thus pathetically addressed him, with quaint foreign accent and persuasive voice: “Sir, I beseech you, for the love of God, let me have some justice. Take some pity on me, a poor stranger in your dominions; I have no counsellor in this land, and, as you are the head of justice in your realm, I flee to you. Alas! I take God to witness that for these twenty years I have been to you a true, humble, and obedient wife. And if our children have died, it has not been for the want of a mother’s love or care. The king, your father, was accounted a second Solomon for wisdom, and my father, Ferdinand, was deemed one of the wisest kings of Spain; and they had counsellors as wise as those of these days, and they all, verily, thought our marriage good and lawful. Therefore I marvel greatly at the inventions now brought against me. If you have found any dishonor in my conduct, then am I content to depart; but if none there be, then I beseech you thus humbly to let me remain in my proper state.”

The queen then rose up in tears, and making a low obeisance to the king, she walked out of court; nor would she return, even though the crier again called her name. Nor would she ever more attend these evil councils, but waited in patient silence the coming of her dread doom. Nor did she display any enmity to the boastful Anne Boleyn, who did most indecently declare her growing power over the fickle fancies of the cruel king. Save only on one occasion, did Queen Catharine give to her intimation that she was aware of her ambitious views. The queen was once playing cards with Anne Boleyn, when she thus addressed her: “My lady Anne, you have the good hap ever to stop at a king; but you are like others, you will have all or none.”

At length, as Queen Catharine would not again appear in court, although several times summoned by the loud voice of the crier, King Henry, in his rage, sent Cardinal Wolsey and others to the queen, to have a private interview with her. Catharine was engaged with her ladies in needlework at the time, to while away her tedious hours, for the cruel king had removed the Princess Mary from her mother, nor would any tears avail the lonely, neglected wife, though she wrote most tender letters to the king begging him to let her behold her child. As the prelates entered the apartment where Queen Catharine and her ladies were occupied with their embroidery, the queen rose to meet them, having a skein of white silk around her neck, and apologizing for the manner of their unceremonious reception. “You see,” said Catharine, pointing to the skein of silk, “our humble employment with my maids; and yet, save these, I have no other counsellors in England, and those in Spain on whom I could rely are far away.”

“If it please your Grace,” replied Wolsey, “we would speak with you alone.”

“My lord,” answered the queen, with a proud innocence, “if you have anything to say, speak it openly before these folk; I would all the world should see and hear it.”

Whereupon Wolsey began to address her in Latin, in which language she was well skilled; but she said humbly: “Pray, my good lord, speak to me in English, for I can, thank God, understand English, though I do know some Latin.”

The queen then led the cardinals into her withdrawing-room, and it is recorded of this conference, that she did so set forth her cause that they would not henceforth decide against her.

But chafing at the long pontifical delays, King Henry determined to take the matter into his own hands. He had used every device to induce the queen to consent to the divorce; and had by bribes and threats obtained from most of the universities of Europe opinions that the marriage was illegal.

King Henry then sent a message to Queen Catharine, who was at that time residing at Greenwich Palace, entreating her, for the quieting of his conscience, that she would refer the matter to arbitration. Catharine replied: “God grant my husband a quiet conscience; but I mean to abide by no decision excepting that of Rome.”

This answer so enraged the king that he took the queen to Windsor Castle, and then himself departing on some excuse, he sent authoritative commands to her that she should leave forever the royal palace.

“He is my husband, and it is my duty to obey him,” said the injured and faithful wife; “but though I go hence at his bidding, I am his wife, and for him will I pray.”

King Henry had previously endeavored to have Catharine persuaded to enter a convent; and in view of such an event, his sensitive conscience had required him to apply to the ablest canonists in Rome to give him their opinions on the three following questions: 1. Whether, if a wife were to enter a convent, the Pope could not, in the plenitude of his power, authorize the husband to marry again. 2. Whether, if the husband were to enter a religious order that he might induce his wife to do the same, he might not be afterwards released from his vow and at liberty to marry. 3. Whether, for reasons of state, the Pope could not license a king to have, like the ancient patriarchs, two wives, of whom one only should be acknowledged and enjoy the honors of royalty. Rather convincing proofs, truly, that the compunctions of conscience of this royal hypocrite were a hollow sham!

After her expulsion from her husband’s court, Catharine first went to her manor of the More, in Hertfordshire; and then settled at Ampthill, from whence she wrote to Pope Clement, informing him of her banishment from the royal court. As the Pope would not sanction the divorce, but instead issued a bull of excommunication against the royal rebel, the king, in 1533, dissolved his own wedlock by a decision pronounced in a court held by Archbishop Cranmer. Some historians state that he had married Anne Boleyn previously to the time when the divorce was pronounced.

When the news of this double insult reached poor Catharine, she was lying upon a sick-bed, worn out with sorrow. In vain had she pleaded to be allowed to see her only child, the Princess Mary, for one last farewell. And now her agonized mother’s heart is wrung with added woe. Lord Montjoy, her former page, was deputed to bear to her the minutes of the infamous conference, by whose decision she was degraded from the rank of queen of England to that of dowager-princess of Wales.

Rising from her couch and seizing her pen, she drew it through the words “princess-dowager,” and exclaimed to those who had brought to her this insulting document: “So I return the minutes; and I desire ye to say to his Grace, my husband, Catharine, his faithful consort, is his lawful queen; and for no earthly consideration will she consent to be called out of her name.”

Catharine afterwards removed to the Bishop of Lincoln’s palace of Bungen. By the king’s orders, she was deprived of most of her servants, because she would be waited on by no one who did not address her as queen. She was next removed to Kimbolton Castle, though Henry’s first orders had been to take her to Fotheringay Castle, a place notorious for its bad air. But Catharine had declared that she would not go there “unless drawn with ropes,” and so she had been sent to Kimbolton.

King Henry also withheld her income, due from her jointure as Arthur’s widow; and notwithstanding the noble portion which she had brought as her dower, she was allowed to suffer for the very necessaries of life, and even a new gown was obtained on trust, as her will shows. When one of her servants, in a rage at her inhuman treatment, execrated the perfidious Anne, Catharine gently chided her, saying: “Hold, hold! curse her not, for in a short time you will have good reason to pity her!”

As death rapidly approached the heart-broken Catharine, she welcomed the summons as a joyful release from her earthly unutterable woe. A few days before she expired, she dictated the following touching words to the base husband who had so atrociously wronged her.

“My Lord and Dear Husband: I commend me unto you. The hour of my death draweth fast on, and my case being such, the tender love I owe you forceth me with a few words, to put you in remembrance of the health and safeguard of your soul, which you ought to prefer before all worldly matters, and before the care and tendering of your own body, for which you have cast me into many miseries and yourself into many cares. For my part I do pardon you all, yea, I do wish and devoutly pray God that He will also pardon you. For the rest I commend unto you Mary, our daughter, beseeching you to be a good father unto her, as I heretofore desired. I entreat you also on behalf of my maids, to give them marriage portions which is not much, they being but three. For all my other servants I solicit a year’s pay more than their due, lest they should be unprovided for. Lastly do I vow that mine eyes desire you above all things.”

Catharine of Aragon breathed her last Jan. 7, 1536. Although it was said that King Henry shed tears over her last pathetic letter, which he received a short time before her death, yet it is also stated that he sent his lawyer to endeavor to seize upon her little property and try to escape paying her trifling legacies and debts.

On the day of her burial, King Henry wore mourning, but Anne Boleyn clothed herself and all her ladies in yellow, exclaiming, “Now am I queen! I am grieved, not that she is dead, but for the vaunting of the good end she made.”

Neither King Henry’s arrogant power nor Anne Boleyn’s pernicious influence could prevent the widespread and lasting effect of the Christian death-bed of Catharine. At length some dared to suggest to King Henry, “that it would become his greatness to rear a stately monument to her memory,” whereupon the beautiful abbey-church of Peterborough, where her remains were placed, was spared from destruction at the period of the suppression of the monasteries, and was endowed and established as the see of Peterborough.

The life of the woman who had supplanted her was short and full of sorrow. Three years only elapsed after Henry had married Anne Boleyn, and only four months after Catharine had sent him her dying forgiveness, when her exulting rival met her awful doom.

Already had King Henry cast his eyes upon Jane Seymour, and on the 15th of May, 1536, the sentence upon the queen was pronounced. Wolsey, who had suggested and aided the divorce of Catharine, had fallen under the disfavor of Anne, and through her influence he was overthrown and died in disgrace. And now Anne herself was to suffer the penalty of her wicked ambition. On the 19th of May, 1536, Anne Boleyn was led out upon Tower Green, and a blow from the executioner ended her eventful, but brief life.

“It is done!” cried the inhuman Henry, as he heard the cannon which was the signal that the tragedy was over; “that is an end of the matter. Unleash the dogs, and let us follow the stag.”

Thus ended the life of Anne Boleyn, and on the next day King Henry VIII. was married to his third wife, Jane Seymour.

QUEEN ELIZABETH, AND MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS.
A.D. 1533-1603.

“A crown

Golden in show, is but a wreath of thorns,

Brings dangers, troubles, cares, and sleepless nights

To him who wears the regal diadem.”—Milton.

“One speaks the glory of the British Queen,

And one describes a charming Indian screen;

A third interprets motions, looks, and eyes;

At every word a reputation dies.”—Pope.

THE lives of Queen Elizabeth, and Mary, Queen of Scots, are so intimately associated, that a sketch of one includes that of the other; and in order to give the history of that epoch with greater conciseness and clearness without unnecessary repetition, a brief outline of each of their lives is here sketched.

For the sake of perspicuity, a few lines will be given to intervening events.

As we stated in the account of Catharine of Aragon, Henry VIII. married Jane Seymour upon the day following the execution of Anne Boleyn. Fortunately for Jane Seymour, death removed her during the succeeding year, rather than the fatal axe of her royal husband. She left an infant prince, who afterwards reigned a few short years as Edward VI.

QUEEN ELIZABETH

Painting by Frd. Zucchero, “so-called Ermine portrait,” in the possession of the Marquis of Salisbury, Hatfield House.

In 1540 Henry VIII. married his fourth wife, Anne of Cleves. She had been represented as a great beauty by Cromwell, whom the king had raised to power. This Cromwell was a former servant of Cardinal Wolsey. But so great was Henry’s disgust upon beholding the awkward, ill-dressed, ill-featured, German princess, whom he had been inveigled into making his fourth bride, that though the marriage was perforce celebrated according to agreement, the unfortunate Cromwell was soon after disgraced and executed, and the sensitive conscience of the royal hypocrite was once again called into requisition to annul this ill-starred union. The beautiful face of Lady Catharine Howard no doubt quickened the stings of the conveniently tender conscience of this dissembling King of Knaves, who declared with pious cant that, having ascertained that Anne of Cleves had previously been betrothed to the Duke of Lorraine, his punctilious scruples would not allow him to retain her as his wife; whereupon King Henry, who waited not now for pope or bishop to annul his marriage vows and break his conjugal fetters, bestowed upon his divorced wife the title of “Adopted Sister,” which honor poor Anne of Cleves consented to receive, doubtless thanking heaven for having preserved her from the more terrible fate of some of the wives of this fickle consort.

By way of celebrating his fifth nuptials, King Henry sent to the stake Dr. Barnes and other heretics, while certain Catholics were quartered for having refused to take the oath of supremacy. This persecution of both parties occasioned the indignation of both Catholics and Protestants. “How do folks manage to live here?” exclaimed a Frenchman, in surprise at such fickle punishments. “The Papists are hanged, and the anti-Papists are burned,” was the answer.

But Catharine Howard had not been queen of England one year before her terrible doom overshadowed her. The king discovered certain condemnatory circumstances regarding the conduct of the queen previous to her marriage with him, and in a few short months Catharine also expiated her ambition and her supposed guilt upon the scaffold.

King Henry again resorted to his literary pursuits for solace, being for the time disgusted with his experiments in the matrimonial line, as before his hapless wives had also been, and forsooth with graver cause and better reason. “The king had better marry a widow,” said the people; and that idea seeming to have occurred also to the mind of his august majesty, in the year 1543, this “royal Bluebeard of English history” took for his sixth wife, the Lady Catherine Parr, the three months’ widow of Lord Latimer. She was an ardent partisan of the Protestant party, as well as learned and beautiful, but her skill in argument had well-nigh cost her dear.

To amuse her gouty, quarrelsome, would-be-literary and spasmodically-religious royal spouse, Queen Catherine ventured to argue with him upon certain points in theology. Finding himself worsted in the mental contest, the irate king exclaimed: “A good hearing this, when women become such clerks; and a thing much to my comfort to come in my old age to be taught by my wife.” And thereupon the new chancellor received the order to prepare the impeachment of the queen. But Catherine was warned in time of her coming doom and was possessed of self-control and tact sufficient for this emergency. When again the conversation turned upon religious subjects and the king questioned her upon some knotty point, she answered laughing: “I am not so foolish as not to know what I can understand when I possess the favor of having for a master and spouse a prince so learned in holy matters.”

“By St. Mary!” exclaimed the king; “it is not so, Kate; thou hast become a doctor.”

“And surely,” quoth the queen with mirthful looks, “I thought I noticed that such conversation diverted your Grace’s attention from your sufferings, and I ventured to discuss with you in the hope of making you forget your present infirmity.”

“Is it so, sweetheart?” replied the king; “then we are friends again, and it doth me more good than if I had received a hundred thousand pounds.”

The skilful and politic queen, well pleased to find her lovely head still resting on her own shoulders instead of on the executioner’s block, gave thanks to God for her deliverance, and henceforth left theology in peace. The orders given to the chancellor not having been revoked, the next day he arrived with forty men to arrest the queen, but King Henry, feigning surprise and anger, sent him away with much apparent displeasure.

Thus had Queen Catherine’s wit saved her neck, and the strong grip of the increasing gout now came to her rescue, and this Prince of Shams soon found himself held in the clutch of such a sturdy foe that neither qualms of conscience, nor tears, nor threats, could rid him at last of this dread consort of the tomb. Death claimed him, and the royal hypocrite was forced to yield to that relentless conqueror; and Henry VIII. faced the awful tribunal where no pretensions or shams could avail to hide the horrid deformity of his sin-polluted soul.

Upon the death of Henry VIII. in 1547, his son Edward was proclaimed king as Edward VI. But this young king died in 1553, at the age of sixteen years, and the mighty realm of England was left to the conflicting succession of two princesses, both of whom their royal father had stigmatized with the ban of illegitimacy. In this emergency the Protestants, headed by the Duke of Northumberland, determined to set up a new claimant.

The daughter-in-law of the Duke of Northumberland was Lady Jane Grey, who was the granddaughter by her mother’s side of Mary, queen-dowager of France, and sister of Henry VIII. Upon the death of young Edward, the Duke of Northumberland appeared before the gentle Lady Jane,—who was occupied in reading Plato in Greek,—and bowing his haughty knee in the presence of his daughter-in-law, he exclaimed:—

“The king, your cousin and our sovereign lord, has surrendered his soul to God; but before his death, and in order to preserve the kingdom from the infection of Popery, he resolved to set aside his sisters, Mary and Elizabeth, declared illegitimate by an act of Parliament, and he has commanded us to proclaim your Grace as queen and sovereign to succeed him.”

Thereupon the poor, unwilling Lady Jane Grey was proclaimed queen, but dearly did she buy her ten days of sovereign power. Mary was speedily brought to London and declared queen, and for this innocent offence the gentle Lady Jane Grey afterwards met death upon the scaffold.

The reign of Mary was made infamously illustrious by the execution of Lady Jane Grey and many others, and the burning at the stake of the bishops Ridley, Latimer, Cranmer, and many other religious martyrs. So sanguinary was the reign of this queen that she is known in history as Bloody Mary.

LADY JANE GREY

Painting by L. De Heere, National Portrait Gallery, London.

Poor Catharine of Aragon! It were surely sad enough to have borne the many sorrows of her afflicted life, without having her only surviving child stamped with such a name of infamy. Mary was the first queen-regnant of England. The queens of England are classified as queen-regnant, queen-consort, or queen-dowager. The first alone reigns in her own right as sole sovereign of the realm. Of the forty queens of England beginning with Matilda, wife of William the Conqueror, who was the first crowned consort, and ending with Victoria, the present queen of England, five were queens-regnant and thirty-five queens-consort.

Elizabeth Tudor, the daughter of Henry VIII. and Anne Boleyn, was born in 1533, on the seventh of September. On the tenth of the same month, the royal babe of three days was christened with great pomp and ceremony.

The walls between Greenwich Palace and the Convent of the Grey Friars were hung with tapestry, and the way strewn with green rushes. The baptismal font was of silver; it was placed in the middle of the church, raised three steps high, the steps being covered with fine cloth, surmounted by a square canopy of crimson satin fringed with gold, enclosed by a rail covered with red ray, and guarded by several gentlemen with aprons and towels about their necks. Between the choir and body of the church a closet was erected with a pan of fire in it, that the child might be dismantled for the ceremony without taking cold. When all these things were ready, the child was brought into the hall of the palace, and the procession proceeded to the Grey Friars’ church. The citizens led the way, two and two; then followed gentlemen, esquires, and chaplains; after them the aldermen, then the mayor by himself, then the privy council in robes, then the gentlemen of the king’s chapel in copes, then barons, earls; then the Earl of Essex, bearing the gilt covered basin; after him the Marquis of Exeter with a taper of virgin wax, followed by the Earl of Dorset bearing the salt, and the Lady Mary of Norfolk, bearing the chrism, which was very rich with pearls and precious stones; lastly, came the Dowager-Duchess of Norfolk, bearing in her arms the royal infant, wrapped in a mantle of purple velvet, having a long train furred with ermine, which was borne by the Countess of Kent, assisted by the Earls of Wiltshire and Derby.

The Duchess was supported on the right side by the Duke of Norfolk, with his marshal’s rod, and on the left by the Duke of Suffolk—the only dukes then existing in the peerage of England—and a rich canopy was borne over the babe by the Lords Rochford, Hussey, and William and Thomas Howard.

At the church door the child was received by the Bishop of London, who performed the ceremony, and a grand cavalcade of bishops and mitred abbots. The sponsors were Archbishop Cranmer, the Dowager-Duchess of Norfolk, and the Marchioness of Dorset.

The future queen was carried to the font, and with the ceremony of the Catholic church christened Elizabeth, after her grandmother, Elizabeth of York; and that done, Garter King-at-Arms cried aloud, “God, of his infinite goodness, send prosperous life and long to the high and mighty Princess of England, Elizabeth. Then the trumpets sounded, the princess was carried up to the altar, the Gospel read over her, and she was confirmed by Archbishop Cranmer and presented with the following gifts:—A standing cup of gold by Cranmer; a similar cup fretted with pearls, by the Duchess of Norfolk; three gilt bowls, pounced, with covers, by the Marchioness of Dorset; and three standard bowls graven and gilt, with covers, by the Marchioness of Exeter. Then, after wafers and comfits had been served in abundance, the procession returned to the palace in the same order as it had set out, excepting that the Earl of Worcester, Lord Thomas Howard, the Lord Fitzwalter, and Sir John Dudley, preceded by the trumpeters, carried the gifts of the sponsors before the princess. Five hundred staff torches carried by the yeomen of the guard and the king’s servants, lit up the way homeward; and twenty gentlemen, bearing large wax flambeaux, walked on each side of the princess, who was carried to the queen’s chamber-door, when a flourish of trumpets sounded and the procession dispersed.”

The tiny infant, christened with all this ceremony, was created Princess of Wales when three months old; and when in her thirteenth month, an attempt was made to betroth her to the Duke D’Angoulême, the third son of Francis I., of France. Rather a strange proceeding concerning the spinster queen of England.

The tragic death of Anne Boleyn left this babe motherless at three years of age.

The first public ceremony in which Elizabeth participated was the christening of Edward the Sixth. She was then just four years of age, and was borne in the arms of the Earl of Hertford, brother to the queen, Jane Seymour. Elizabeth carried in her tiny hands the chrism for her new-born half-brother; and after the ceremony she walked with infant dignity in the procession, being led by the hand by the Princess Mary.

For some time, Elizabeth was allowed to reside in the same palace with the infant Edward, and she displayed the greatest affection for him. When she was seven years old she made the little prince a birthday gift of “a shyrte of cam’yke of her owne woorkynge,” which was quite precocious, considering her tender years.

The Princess Mary evinced great regard for her sister Elizabeth; and when the brutal King Henry deposed both these princesses from their rights of succession, and stigmatized them as illegitimate, and sent word to Mary that she should no longer treat Elizabeth as princess, Mary wrote a letter to her father, the king, in which she kindly mentioned Elizabeth thus: “My sister Elizabeth is in good health, and such a child, too, as I doubt not but your Highness shall have cause to rejoice of in time coming.”

Anne of Cleves was granted permission to see Elizabeth, even after her divorce, providing Elizabeth did not address her as queen; and all of the wives of Henry VIII. evinced great love for the Princess Elizabeth; and through the influence of Catherine Parr, Henry VIII. restored Elizabeth to her right of succession, although the act which pronounced her illegitimate remained forever unrepealed; and after she had become queen of England, she refrained from requiring Parliament to repeal those acts of her father which had declared his marriage with Anne Boleyn null and void; and she contented herself with an act of Parliament which declared in general terms her rights of succession to the throne.

While the youthful Edward VI. was king, the Princess Elizabeth was involved in certain questionable relations with the Lord High Admiral Seymour, who had married the Queen-Dowager Catherine, a few weeks after the death of Henry VIII.

Upon the death of Catherine, a year afterwards, Lord High Admiral Seymour aspired to the hand of the Princess Elizabeth. There is no doubt that Elizabeth loved Seymour; and, as she acknowledged, would have married him if the consent of the royal executors could have been obtained; but as such an alliance was considered beneath her, Elizabeth was shut up for a time in a sort of imprisonment, and the lord high admiral was conveniently disposed of by being led to the scaffold.

It is amusing to note that the hand of this much-courted and confirmed-spinster queen was once offered by Henry VIII. to a Scottish earl of equivocal birth and indifferent reputation, who actually declined the honor. But Elizabeth, when queen of England, proudly refused earls, dukes, and even kings, though it must be confessed she served the king of Sweden, who was one of her most constant suitors, rather meanly; for this royal lover sent her a magnificent present consisting of eighteen large piebald horses, and two ships’ loads of the most precious articles his country could produce, which princely gift Elizabeth most graciously received, but wrote to this ardent lover, that she anxiously hoped he would spare himself the fatigues of a fruitless voyage,—rather strange royal etiquette, to receive the suitor’s gift and then reject the giver.

Regarding Elizabeth’s mental acquirements, her learned preceptor, Roger Ascham, thus wrote:—

“The Lady Elizabeth hath accomplished her sixteenth year; and so much solidity of understanding, such courtesy united with dignity, have never been observed at so early an age. She has the most ardent love of true religion and of the best kind of literature. The constitution of her mind is exempt from female weakness, and she is endued with a masculine power of application. No apprehension can be quicker than hers, no memory more retentive. French and Italian she speaks like English; Latin with fluency, propriety, and judgment; she also speaks Greek with me frequently, willingly, and moderately well. Nothing can be more elegant than her handwriting, whether in Greek or Roman characters. In music she is very skilful, but does not greatly delight. With respect to personal decoration, she greatly prefers a simple elegance to show and splendor, so despising the outward adorning of plaiting the hair and of wearing gold, that in the whole manner of her life she rather resembles Hippolita than Phœdra.

“She read with me almost the whole of Cicero and a great part of Livy; from these two authors, indeed, her knowledge of the Latin language has been almost exclusively derived. The beginning of the day was always devoted by her to the New Testament in Greek, after which she read select portions of Isocrates, and the tragedies of Sophocles, which I judged best adapted to supply her tongue with the purest diction, her mind with the most excellent precepts, and her exalted station with a defence against the utmost power of fortune. For her religious instruction she drew first from the fountains of Scripture, and afterwards from St. Cyprian, Melancthon, and similar works. In every kind of writing she easily detected any ill-adapted or far-fetched expression. By a diligent attention to these particulars, her ears became so practised and so nice that there was nothing in Greek, Latin, or English, prose or verse, which, according to its merits or defects, she did not either reject with disgust or receive with the highest delight.”

After the accession of Mary to the throne, the Wyatt rebellion took place: and as it was reported that the Princess Elizabeth was implicated, she was confined for three months in the Tower. Elizabeth was then conveyed to Woodstock, where she endured a less rigorous imprisonment. Her correspondence was carefully watched, and it was with great difficulty that she succeeded at length in appealing to the queen. It was at this time that she wrote upon her window with a diamond the following lines:—

“Much suspected, of me

Nothing proved can be,

Quoth Elizabeth prisoner.”

As her Protestant proclivities were well known, when by the marriage of Mary to Philip of Spain, Popedom was re-established in England, Elizabeth thought it policy to attend the confessional; and upon one occasion being asked what was her belief regarding the “blessed sacrament,” she gave this famous and ambiguous answer:—

“Christ was the word that spake it;

He blessed the bread and brake it.

And what the word did make it,

That I revere and take it.”

During this imprisonment, Elizabeth received a message from the queen, offering her immediate liberty on condition of her accepting the hand of the Duke of Savoy in marriage. But the proud princess preferred imprisonment to compulsory wedlock, and she continued for some time longer in forced seclusion. At length Philip, the husband of Queen Mary, who seemed to be the person most persistent in regard to this marriage of Elizabeth, now resolved to try more lenient measures, as severity would not coerce her into obedience. The princess was accordingly released from her imprisonment, and invited to a grand ball at the palace, to which the duke was also welcomed as a guest. Elizabeth was attired for this occasion in a robe of white satin embroidered all over with pearls; but the matrimonial matters do not seem to have advanced favorably, notwithstanding; and the death of Queen Mary soon after left Philip of Spain a widower, and he himself now became a suitor for the hand of the young Queen Elizabeth. But to his suit, also, Elizabeth turned a deaf ear, and Philip was henceforth her bitterest enemy.

At the time of the accession of Elizabeth to the throne of England, the English people were much divided in religious opinions consequent upon the three important theological changes which had taken place in the short space of twelve years.

“King Henry VIII. retained the ecclesiastical supremacy, with the first-fruits and tenths; maintained seven sacraments, with obits and mass for the quick and the dead.

“King Edward VI. abolished the mass, authorized one Book of Common Prayer in English, with hallowing the bread, and wine, etc., and established only two sacraments.

“Queen Mary restored all things according to the Church of Rome, re-established the papal supremacy, and permitted nothing within her dominions that was repugnant to the Roman Catholic Church. But the death of Mary was the ruin of all abbots, priors, prioresses, monks, and nuns.

“Elizabeth, on her accession, commanded that no one should preach without a special license; that such rites and ceremonies should be used in all churches as had been used in her Highness’ chapel; and that the Epistles and Gospel should be read in the English tongue; and in her first Parliament, held at Westminster, in January, 1559, she expelled the papal supremacy, resumed the first-fruits and tenths, repressed the mass, re-introduced the Book of Common Prayer and the sacraments in the English tongue, and finally firmly re-established the Protestant Church of England.”

Her Majesty was twenty-five years of age at the time of her coronation. She sent the usual notification of her accession to the throne to the Pope at Rome. But in answer, the fiery-spirited old man thundered forth his maledictions at her presumption in daring to assume the crown without his leave. Elizabeth, in reply, took upon herself the audacious title of “the Head of the Church,” and boldly ignored the pontifical anathemas. But she disliked the strict Presbyterians, or Puritans, as they were then called, almost as much as she did the Roman Catholics. Their great leader, Knox, had published a pamphlet upon female government, entitled “The First Blast of the Trumpet, Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women.” This was more than the proud queen could stand, and Knox and the Puritans felt the power of her displeasure. She was not over fond of preachers or of preaching, and remarked “that two or three were enough for a whole country.” When her clergy discoursed upon subjects distasteful to her in their sermons, she would frequently call out in her chapel, and command the preacher to change the subject or restrain an exhortation which she considered too bold. She had not the slightest idea of tolerating any opinions contrary to her own august will; and she told the Archbishop of Canterbury that “she was resolved that no man should be suffered to decline either on the left or on the right hand from the drawn line limited by her authority and injunctions.”

But we have not space to give either the religious or political aspects of Queen Elizabeth’s reign. When, in 1558, the death of Queen Mary was announced to her by a deputation from the privy council who came to Hatfield where she was then staying to salute her as queen, she appeared much overpowered by the solemnity of the occasion, and exclaimed, as she sank upon her knees in devotion: “It is the Lord’s doing; it is marvellous in our eyes!”

She afterwards adopted as a motto in Latin for her gold and silver coins, “I have chosen God for my helper.”

On being conducted with much pomp to the royal apartments in the Tower, attended by an immense concourse of people who graciously greeted her, she remarked upon entering the well-remembered Tower where she had once been received through the traitor’s gate as a prisoner, but now entered the royal palace as acknowledged sovereign: “Some have fallen from being princes in this land to be prisoners in this place. I am raised from being prisoner in this place to be a prince of this land; so I must yield myself thankful to God and merciful to man, in remembrance of the same.” She was crowned on the 15th of January, 1558, with great splendor. Upon the morning after her coronation, as she was proceeding to chapel, one of her courtiers cried out with loud voice, requesting that four or five prisoners might be released. Upon the queen’s asking whom these prisoners might be, he replied: “The four Evangelists and the Apostle St. Paul, who have been long shut up in an unknown tongue, and are not able to converse with the people.”

Elizabeth answered this strange appeal by remarking: “It is best to inquire of them whether they approve of being released or not.”

The result of a convocation held for the discussion of this subject was a new translation for common use.

In the first session of Parliament a deputation was sent to Queen Elizabeth at Whitehall, requesting that her Grace might think of marriage, to which Elizabeth replied:

“In a thing which is not very pleasing to me, the infallible testimony of your good will and all the rest of my people is most acceptable. As concerning your eager persuasion of me to marriage, I must tell you I have been ever persuaded that I was ordained by God to consider, and above all, to do those things which appertain to his glory. And therefore it is that I have made choice of this kind of life. To conclude, I am already bound unto a husband, which is the kingdom of England, and let that suffice you;” saying which she extended her finger upon which she wore the ring with which the ceremony of her coronation had been performed. This same demand of the Parliament was subsequently repeated many times, but until the end of her life Elizabeth took pleasure in keeping England and the world in suspense by her grave coquetries, which from time to time betokened a probable marriage which she herself never apparently desired. Proposals for her hand poured in from every court of Europe, but though she entertained some of them for a time, she always managed to break them off in the end. The man whom she probably really desired to marry after she became queen was her favorite Dudley, whom she afterwards created Earl of Leicester. So great was her evident fancy for this man that she might have consented had he been free; and when the sudden and suspicious death of his wife left his hand at her disposal, the horror of the people who believed him guilty of wife-murder restrained her from thus lowering her queenly dignity. In spite of deceit and all kinds of wily intrigues, this subtle sycophant succeeded in retaining his place as favorite until his death, notwithstanding his base plots and false pretensions.

The century immediately preceding the reign of Elizabeth was renowned for three most illustrious events,—the invention of printing, which took place about 1448; the discovery of America in 1492; and the reformation in 1517.

The age of Elizabeth was also fertile in great events and in great men. “It was the age of heroism and genius, of wonderful mental activity, extraordinary changes and daring enterprises, of fierce struggles for religious or political freedom. It produced a Shakespeare, the first of poets; Bacon, the great philosopher; Hooker, the great divine; Drake, the great seaman, and the first of English circumnavigators; Gresham, the great merchant; and Sydney, noblest of courtiers; and Spenser, and Raleigh, and Essex, names renowned in history and song. In other countries we find Luther, the reformer; and Sully, the statesman; Ariosto and Tasso; Cervantes and Camöens; Michel Angelo, Titian, and Correggio; Palestrina, the father of Italian music; all these, and many other famous men never since surpassed were nearly contemporary; it was an age of greatness, and Elizabeth was great and illustrious in connection with it.”

The reign of “Good Queen Bess” has been held in reverence, in comparison with that of “Bloody Mary,” her sister, which was stamped with infamy; and the “Elizabethan age” is one of the most illustrious in the annals of literature.

The government of Elizabeth was acknowledged to have been admirably managed, as regards her foreign policy, her wars, treaties, and alliances with other European powers. With the exception of Leicester and Hatton, her statesmen were well chosen. Lord Burleigh was her prime minister for forty years, and Sir Nicholas Bacon, and his more famous son, Francis, were among her wise and remarkable ministers.

Navigation, manufactures, and trade, made great advance during her reign. She was the first to establish trade with Turkey and Russia, and was the first sovereign who sent ambassadors to those courts. Mirrors and drinking-glasses from Venice, also porcelain and damask linen were then first introduced into England; but with all this advance forks were still unknown, and Queen Elizabeth, and her elegant belaced courtiers, and her stately beruffed dames, still ate with their fingers.

The first pair of knitted silk stockings ever made in England was presented to Queen Elizabeth in 1560 by her silk-woman. So much did she enjoy this luxury of dress, that she henceforth discarded her hose of cloth, and never after wore any other than those of silk.

Although her preceptor had described the youthful Princess Elizabeth as plain and sombre in her mode of dress, Queen Elizabeth was famous for her extravagant and showy costumes, and her great vanity regarding her appearance. So outrageous in size did her favorite ruffs become, when the fashion was adopted by her court ladies, that a royal proclamation was issued limiting them to a certain number of inches in height, Elizabeth retaining the privilege of wearing them larger and higher than any of her ladies; and bishops thundered forth their condemnations regarding the growing extravagance of dress, cautioning their hearers against “fine-fingered rufflers, with sable about their necks, corked slippers, trimmed buskins, and warm mittens. These tender Parnels” said they, “must have one gown for the day, another for the night; one long, another short; one for winter, another for summer; one furred through, another but faced; one for the work-day, another for the holy-day; one of this color, another of that; one of cloth, another of silk or damask. Change of apparel, one afore dinner, another after; one of Spanish fashion, another of Turkey; and to be brief, never content with enough, but always devising new and strange fashions. Yea, a ruffian will have more in his ruff and his hose than he should spend in a year; he who ought to go in a russet coat spends as much on apparel for himself and his wife as his father would have kept a good house with.”

“The costumes of that age were magnificent. Gowns of velvet or satin, richly trimmed with silk, furs, or gold lace, costly gold chains, and caps or hoods of rich materials, adorned with feathers, decorated on all occasions of ceremony the persons not only of nobles and courtiers, but of their retainers, and even of the substantial citizens. The attire of the ladies was proportionally splendid. Hangings of cloth, of silk, and of velvet, cloth of gold, and cloth of silver, or ‘needle-work sublime’ adorned on days of family festivities the principal chamber of every house of respectable appearance; and on public festivals these rich draperies were suspended from the balconies, and, combined with the banners and pennons floating overhead, gave to the streets an appearance resembling a suite of long and gayly dressed salons.”

Queen Elizabeth was very fond of display and gorgeous pageants, and her royal progresses were always attended with magnificent spectacles of various kinds: sometimes a splendid water procession on the Thames; again, she rode on horseback, attended by lords and ladies attired in crimson velvet, with their horses caparisoned with the same rich material.

The band of gentlemen pensioners, which was the boast and ornament of Elizabeth’s court, was composed of the flower of the English nobility, and to be admitted to serve in its ranks was regarded as a high distinction.

Music was much in fashion in Elizabeth’s court, and she excelled Mary, Queen of Scots, on keyed instruments, though Mary played best upon the lute. An instrument resembling a small guitar was much used as an accompaniment to the voice.

Elizabeth gave little patronage to painting or architecture; the former art she encouraged only so far as regarded the multiplication of pictures of herself. At length so many were the poor portraits of her which appeared, and were mostly caricatures of her royal face and person, that the queen issued a proclamation prohibiting all persons from drawing, painting, or engraving her countenance or figure, until some perfect pattern should be made by a skilful limner. But her painters did not flatter her as much as her poets.

“The portraits remaining of Elizabeth show how vile, how tawdry, and how vulgar was her taste in art. They could hardly be fine enough to please her; they seem all made up of jewels, crowns, and frizzled hair, powdered with diamonds, and ruffs and cuffs and farthingales and things; and from the midst of this superfluity of ornament, her pinched Roman nose, thin lips, and sharp eyes peer out with a very disagreeable effect, quite contrary to all our ideas of grace or majesty.” She was so little capable of judging a work of art that she would not allow a painter to put any shadows upon the face, because, she said, “shade is an accident, and not in nature.”

Many stories are told illustrating Elizabeth’s extreme vanity. Sir John Harrington relates:—

“That Lady M. Howard was possessed of a rich border powdered with golde and pearle, and a velvet suite belonging thereto, which moved many to envye; nor did it please the queene, who thought it exceeded her own. One daye the queene did sende privately, and got the lady’s rich vesture, which she put on herself, and came forthe the chamber among the ladies. The kirtle and border was far too shorte for her majestie’s height, and she asked every one how they liked her new-fancied suit. At length she asked the owner herself ‘if it was not made too short and ill-becoming,’ which the poor ladie did presentlie consent to. ‘Why, then, if it become not me as being too shorte, I am minded it shall never become thee as being too fine; so it fitteth neither well.’ This sharp rebuke abashed the ladie, and she never adorned herself herewith any more.”

The sight of her own face in a mirror, as she grew old and became still more unprepossessing in appearance, threw her into “transports of rage,” and towards the end of her life she discontinued the use of a mirror, and it is said that her tire-women “sometimes indulged their own hatred and mirth, and ventured to lay upon the royal nose the carmine which ought to have embellished the cheeks,” confident that her aversion to a mirror would screen their pranks. Still the herd of flatterers around her were forced to address her as a goddess of beauty, and she actually seemed to think she could play the part of a Venus at the age of sixty-five. Or she was at least pleased when her fawning courtiers called her one.

Sir James Melville gives this amusing account of Elizabeth’s jealousy of the beauty and attractions of her hated rival, Mary, Queen of Scots. Melville had been sent from Scotland to London by Mary, to interview Elizabeth concerning certain matters. Sir James writes: “At divers meetings we had conversations on different subjects. The queen, my mistress, had instructed me to leave matters of gravity sometimes, and cast in merry purposes, lest otherwise she should be wearied, she being well informed of her natural temper. Therefore, in declaring my observations of the customs of Holland, Poland, and Italy, the buskins of the women were not forgot, and what country weed I thought best becoming gentlewomen. The queen said she had clothes of every sort, which every day thereafter, so long as I was there, she changed.

“One day she had the English weed, another day the French, another the Italian, and so on. She asked me which of them became her best? I answered, in my judgment the Italian dress; which answer I found pleased her well, for she delighted to show her golden-colored hair, wearing a caul and a bonnet, as they do in Italy. Her hair was rather reddish than yellow, curled in appearance naturally. She desired to know what color of hair was reputed best; and whether my queen’s hair or hers was best; and which of them was fairest? I said she was the fairest queen in England, and mine in Scotland; yet still she appeared earnest. I then told her they were both the fairest ladies in their respective countries; that her Majesty was whiter, but my queen was very lovely. She inquired which of them was highest in stature. I said my queen. Then said she, ‘She is too high, for I myself am neither too high nor too low.’ She inquired if she played well upon the lute and the virginals? I said reasonably for a queen.

“That same day, after dinner, my Lord of Hunsdon drew me to a quiet gallery, that I might hear some music,—but he said he durst not avow it,—where I might hear the queen play upon the virginals. After I had harkened awhile, I stood by the tapestry that hung before the door of the chamber, and seeing her back was towards the door, I ventured within the chamber and stood at a pretty space, hearing her play excellently well; but she left off immediately as soon as she turned about and saw me. She appeared surprised and came forward, seeming to strike me with her hand, alleging that she used not to play before men, but when she was solitary, to shun melancholy. She asked how I came there. I answered, as I was walking with my Lord of Hunsdon we passed by the chamber door; I heard such melody as ravished me, whereby I was drawn in ere I knew how; excusing my fault of homeliness, as being brought up in the court of France, where such freedom was allowed; declaring myself willing to endure whatever punishment her Majesty should please to inflict upon me for so great an offence. Then she sat down low upon a cushion, and I upon my knees by her, but with her own hand she gave me a cushion to place under my knee, which at first I refused, but she compelled me to take it. She then called for my Lady Strafford out of the next chamber, for the queen was alone. She inquired whether my queen or she played best. In that I found myself obliged to give her the praise. She said my French was very good, and asked if I could speak Italian, which she spoke reasonably well. I told her Majesty I had no time to learn that language, not having been above two months in Italy. Then she spoke to me in Dutch, which was not good, and would know what kind of books I most delighted in, whether theology, history, or love matters. I said I liked well of all the sorts.

“I now took occasion to press earnestly my despatch; she said I was sooner weary of her company than she was of mine. I told her Majesty that though I had no reason to be weary, I knew my mistress’s affairs called me home. Yet I was detained two days longer, that I might see her dance, as I was afterwards informed; which being over, she inquired of me whether she or my queen danced best? I answered, the queen danced not so high, nor so disposedly as she did. Then again she wished that she might see the queen at some convenient place of meeting. I offered to convey her secretly to Scotland by post horses, clothed like a page, that under this disguise she might see the queen. She appeared to like that kind of language, but only answered it with a sigh, saying, ‘Alas! if I might do it thus!’ I then withdrew.”

The rise of English manufacture is dated from the reign of Queen Elizabeth. The first paper-mill was set up in 1590, and watches and coaches were first introduced into England during her reign. “When we hear of Elizabeth riding to the House of Peers on a pillion in the beginning of her reign, we should not forget that towards the close of it she is represented as taking an airing in her coach every day.”

“The daily ceremonial of her court was distinguished by ‘Oriental servility.’ Her table was served kneeling, and with as many genuflections as would have contented the Emperor of China. Even her ministers never addressed her but on their knees. From this slavish ceremony Lord Burleigh was latterly excused, when age and infirmities had rendered it painful or rather impracticable; but he was the only exception.”

It has been said “that Elizabeth never forgot the woman in the sovereign; and that with greater truth she never forget the sovereign in the woman.” Poor praise, truly! without heart, without capacity for any kindliness or womanly tenderness, she lived without a friend and died without a mourner. Courtiers grovelled in fawning servility at her feet, women feared her; but no one loved her, and even those who flattered her despised her.

Of her two celebrated favorites, Leicester and Essex, the first was perfidious and utterly worthless; the latter was too manly to bear her insolence, and for that he lost his head. He was too spirited to cringe at her footstool, and when on one occasion she angrily boxed his ear, he exclaimed, in indignation, “I would not have taken such an affront from the hands of the king, her father, and I will not accept it of a petticoat! I owe her Majesty the duty of an earl, but I will never serve her as a slave!”

But nevertheless, the petticoat would not be opposed, and Essex perished on the fatal block, even though his death wrung the small heart Elizabeth possessed with all the sorrow it was capable of feeling. She had given Essex a ring in the time of his influence, telling him, if ever he was in danger to send it to her and she would aid him. When he was sentenced to die, he sent Queen Elizabeth this ring, but it passed through the hands of a court lady whose husband was Essex’s deadly foe. The ring never reached the queen, and Essex was executed. Years after, when this countess was dying she confessed the fate of the ring to the queen. The sorrow and remorse which Elizabeth experienced on knowing that her favorite had thus appealed to her mercy, hastened her own death.

It was during the reign of Queen Elizabeth that Sir Francis Drake accomplished the journey around the world and Sir Walter Raleigh made his famous voyages. Tobacco was first introduced into England by him. An amusing story is told of the first use of the weed. He was smoking a pipe one day, when his servant came into the room bearing a tankard of ale. The simple fellow had never before witnessed the process of smoking, and supposing that the clouds of smoke issuing from his master’s lips betokened some awful accident, he flung the ale into his face and ran from the room, crying that his master was on fire and would be burned to ashes if they did not come to his aid.

Raleigh once amused the queen by making a wager with her that he could tell her the exact weight of the smoke of every pipeful of tobacco that he consumed. The wager was accepted by the queen, and Raleigh thereupon proceeded to weigh the tobacco he placed in his pipe, and, after smoking, he weighed the ashes remaining, and informed her that the difference between the two was the exact weight of the smoke. Elizabeth paid the wager, saying: “That she knew of many persons who had turned their gold into smoke, but that he was the first one who had turned smoke into gold.” The well-known gallantry of this same Raleigh in spreading his new velvet cloak over the muddy walk for his royal mistress to tread upon, not only secured him many new cloaks, but the powerful patronage of the queen.

It was to Queen Elizabeth that the poet Spenser dedicated his poetical muse, and in his “Faerie Queene” he celebrated and exalted his sovereign. But the greatest name of her reign, and the one which has shed the brightest and most lasting lustre upon the Elizabethan age, was the illustrious Shakespeare. It is stated that the “Merry Wives of Windsor” was composed by order of Queen Elizabeth, who, having been pleased with Falstaff, in the play of “Henry IV.,” desired to see more of him. It is supposed that between 1590 and 1603 Shakespeare produced the plays of “Venus and Adonis,” “Two Gentlemen of Verona,” “Love’s Labor Lost,” “Taming of the Shrew,” “Henry IV., V., VI. and VIII.,” “Midsummer-Night’s Dream,” “Hamlet,” “Richard II. and III.,” “Romeo and Juliet,” “King John,” “As You Like It,” “Merchant of Venice,” “All’s Well that Ends Well,” “Much Ado About Nothing,” and “Merry Wives of Windsor”; and before 1606: “Troilus and Cressida,” “Othello,” “Twelfth Night,” “Measure for Measure,” “Comedy of Errors,” “King Lear,” and “Macbeth.” So that nearly all of these works appeared in the reign of Elizabeth, who died in 1603.

Elizabeth’s contest against Philip II. of Spain, in assisting the Dutch in their war against Spanish tyranny, was one of the most illustrious of her foreign enterprises. In this war of liberty against despotism, Elizabeth’s bravest commanders and most accomplished courtiers distinguished themselves.

The two conflicting opinions regarding the character and reign of Elizabeth are thus ably stated by an illustrious writer: “Almost from our infancy we have a general impression that her reign is distinguished as one of the most memorable in history; and at a later period we hear of the ‘Elizabethan age’ as equally illustrious in the annals of our literature. Her wisdom, her courage, her prudence and her patriotism, her unconquerable spirit, her excellent laws and vigilant government, her successes at home and abroad, her wars and alliances with the greatest and most powerful princes of her time, the magnificent position which England maintained in her reign as the stronghold of the reformed religion, her own grandeur as the guardian of the Protestants and the arbitress of Europe, her magnanimous stand in defence of the national faith and independence when the Spanish Armada was defeated in 1588; the long list of great men, warriors, statesmen, and poets, who sustained her throne, who graced her court, obeyed her slightest word, lived in her smiles and worshipped as she passed,—all these things are familiar to young people almost from the time they can remember, and they leave a strong and magnificent impression on the fancy. As we grow older and become acquainted with the particular details of history, we begin to perceive with surprise that this splendid array of great names and great achievements has another and a far different aspect. On looking nearer we behold on the throne of England a woman whose avarice and jealousy, whose envious, relentless, and malignant spirit, whose coarse manners and violent temper render her contemptible. We see England, the country of freedom, ruled as absolutely as any Turkish province by this imperious sultana and her grand vizier, Burleigh; we see human blood poured out like water on the scaffold, and persecution, torture, and even death again inflicted for the sake of religion; we see great men, whose names are the glory of their country, pining in neglect, and a base, unworthy favorite revelling in power. We read and learn these things with astonishment; we find it difficult to reconcile such apparent contradictions.”

Such are the difficulties which meet us in the study of the reign of Queen Elizabeth; but a close study of the contradictions in the character of Elizabeth herself will partly solve the seeming mystery. Elizabeth possessed great and heroic traits of character, but these were joined to such a pitiably weak, jealous, and treacherous nature as to make her an anomaly in the history of the world. She lived in an illustrious age, fraught with some of the most momentous events in the annals of time; in a century star-studded with the lustrous names of genius, whose immortal fame has shed a reflex glory on her reign. Interests vital to the progress of humanity teemed and surged around her throne, and lifted her glory high on the topmost crests of the glistening waves of the on-rushing ocean of enlightened civilization and religious liberty.

Hentzner, the German traveller, who visited England in 1599, thus describes Elizabeth’s court four years previous to her death:—

“The presence-chamber was hung with rich tapestry, and the floor, after the English fashion, strewn with hay, through which the queen commonly passed on her way to chapel. At the door stood a gentleman dressed in velvet, with a gold chain, whose office was to introduce to the queen any person of distinction who came to wait upon her. It was Sunday, when there was usually the greatest attendance of nobility. In the same hall were the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of London, a great number of councillors of state, officers of the crown, and gentlemen who waited the queen’s coming out, which she did from her own apartment when it was time to go to prayers, attended in the following manner: first went gentlemen, barons, earls, Knights of the Garter, all richly dressed and bareheaded; next came the chancellor, bearing the seals in a red silk purse, between two, one of which carried the royal sceptre, the other the sword of state in a red scabbard studded with golden fleur-de-lys, the point upward.

“Next came the queen, in the sixty-sixth year of her age, as we were told, very majestic; her face oblong, fair, but wrinkled; her eyes small, yet black and pleasant; her nose a little hooked, her lips narrow and her teeth black (a defect the English seem subject to, from their too great use of sugar). She had in her ears two pearls, with very rich drops; she wore false hair, and that red; upon her head she had a small crown, reported to be made of some of the gold of the celebrated Lunebourg table. Her bosom was uncovered, as all the English ladies have it till they marry, and she had on a necklace of exceeding fine jewels. Her hands were small, her fingers long, and her stature neither tall nor low; her air was stately, her manner of speaking mild and obliging. That day she was dressed in white silk, bordered with pearls of the size of beans, and over it a mantle of black silk, shot with silver threads; her train was very long, the end of it borne by a marchioness. Instead of a chain she had a collar of gold and jewels. As she went along in all this state and magnificence, she spoke very graciously, first to one, then to another, in English, French, and Italian; for besides being well skilled in Greek, Latin, and the languages I have mentioned, she is mistress of Spanish, Scotch, and Dutch. Whoever speaks to her it is kneeling; now and then she raises some with her hand. Wherever she turned her face as she was going along everybody fell down on their knees. The ladies of the court followed next to her, very handsome and well shaped, and for the most part dressed in white. She was guarded on each side by the gentlemen pensioners, fifty in number, with gilt battle-axes. In the ante-chapel, next the hall, where we were, petitions were presented to her, and she received them most graciously, which occasioned the acclamation of ‘Long live Queen Elizabeth!’”

But while the queen was still at service in the chapel, her table was set out with the following solemnity:—

“A gentleman entered the room, bearing a rod, and along with him another, who had a table-cloth, which, after they had both kneeled three times with the utmost veneration, he spread upon the table, and after kneeling again they both retired. Then came two others, one with the rod again, the other with a salt-cellar, a plate, and bread; when they had kneeled as the others had done, and placed what was brought upon the table, they too retired, with the same ceremonies performed by the first. At last came an unmarried lady (we were told she was a countess), and along with her a married one, bearing a tasting knife; the former was dressed in white silk, who, when she had prostrated herself three times in the most graceful manner, approached the table and rubbed the plates with bread and salt, with as much awe as if the queen had been present. When they had waited there a little while, the yeomen of the guard entered, bareheaded, clothed in scarlet, with a golden rose upon their backs, bringing in at each turn a course of twenty-four dishes, served in plate, most of it gilt; these dishes were received by a gentleman in the same order they were brought, and placed upon the table, while the lady-taster gave to each of the guard a mouthful to eat of the particular dish he had brought, for fear of any poison. During the time that this guard,—which consists of the tallest and stoutest men that can be found in all England, being carefully selected for this service,—were bringing dinner, twelve trumpets and two kettle-drums made the hall ring for half an hour together.

“At the end of all this ceremonial a number of unmarried ladies appeared, who, with particular solemnity, lifted the meat off the table, and conveyed it into the queen’s inner and more private chamber, where, after she had chosen for herself, the rest goes to the ladies of the court. The queen dines and sups alone, with very few attendants; and it is very seldom that anybody, foreign or native, is admitted at that time, and then only at the intercession of some person in power.”

This same traveller, Hentzner, states “that he counted on London bridge no less than three hundred heads of persons who had been executed for high treason.” Surely a lamentable evidence of Elizabeth’s cruelty.

J. R. Green, M. A., in his “History of the English People,” thus sketches the character of Queen Elizabeth:—

“Her moral temper recalled in its strange contrasts the mixed blood within her veins. She was at once the daughter of Henry and Anne Boleyn. From her father she inherited her frank and hearty address, her love of popularity and of free intercourse with the people, her dauntless courage, her amazing self-confidence. Her harsh, man-like voice, her impetuous will, her pride, her furious outbursts of anger, came to her with her Tudor blood. She rated great nobles as if they were school-boys; she met the insolence of Essex with a box on the ear; she would break, now and then, into the gravest deliberations, to swear at her ministers like a fish-wife.

“But strangely in contrast with the violent outlines of her Tudor temper stood the sensuous, self-indulgent nature she derived from Anne Boleyn. Splendor and pleasure were with Elizabeth the very air she breathed. Her delight was to move in perpetual progresses from castle to castle through a series of gorgeous pageants, fanciful and extravagant as a caliph’s dream. She loved gayety and laughter and wit. A happy retort or a finished compliment never failed to win her favor. She hoarded jewels. Her dresses were innumerable. Her vanity remained even to old age, the vanity of a coquette in her teens. No adulation was too fulsome for her, no flattery of her beauty too gross. She would play with her rings, that her courtiers might note the delicacy of her hands; or dance a coranto, that the French ambassador, hidden dexterously behind a curtain, might report her sprightliness to his master. Her levity, her frivolous laughter, her unwomanly jests, gave color to a thousand scandals. Her character, in fact, like her portraits, was utterly without shade. Of womanly reserve or self-restraint she knew nothing. No instinct of delicacy veiled the voluptuous temper which had broken out in the romps of her girlhood, and showed itself almost ostentatiously throughout her later life. Personal beauty in a man was a sure passport to her liking. She patted handsome young squires on the neck when they knelt to kiss her hand, and fondled her ‘sweet Robin,’—Lord Leicester,—in the face of the court.

“It was no wonder that the statesmen whom she outwitted held Elizabeth almost to the last to be little more than a frivolous woman. But the Elizabeth whom they saw was far from being all of Elizabeth. The wilfulness of Henry, the triviality of Anne Boleyn, played over the surface of a nature hard as steel, a temper purely intellectual, the very type of reason untouched by imagination or passion. Luxurious and pleasure-loving as she seemed, Elizabeth lived simply and frugally, and she worked hard. Her vanity and caprice had no weight whatever with her state affairs. The coquette of the presence-chamber became the coolest and hardest of politicians at the council-board. Fresh from the flattery of her courtiers, she would tolerate no flattery in the closet; she was herself plain and downright of speech with her councillors, and she looked for a corresponding plainness of speech in return. Her expenditure was parsimonious, and even miserly. If any trace of her sex lingered in her actual statesmanship, it was seen in the simplicity and tenacity of purpose that often underlie a woman’s fluctuations of feeling. It was this in part which gave her her marked superiority over the statesmen of her time. No nobler group of ministers ever gathered round a council-board than those who gathered round the council-board of Elizabeth. But she is the instrument of none. She listens, she weighs, she uses or puts by the counsels of each in turn, but her policy as a whole is her own. It was a policy, not of genius, but of good sense. Of political wisdom, indeed, in its larger and more generous sense, Elizabeth had little or none; but her political tact was unerring. It was a policy of detail, and in details her wonderful readiness and ingenuity found scope for their exercise. She played with grave cabinets as a cat plays with a mouse, and with much of the same feline delight in the mere embarrassment of her victims.

“Had Elizabeth written the story of her reign, she would have prided herself, not on the triumph of England or the ruin of Spain, but on the skill with which she had hoodwinked and outwitted every statesman in Europe during fifty years. Nor was her trickery without political value. Nothing is more revolting in the queen, but nothing is more characteristic, than her shameless mendacity. It was an age of political lying, but in the profusion and recklessness of her lies Elizabeth stood without a peer in Christendom. A falsehood was to her simply an intellectual means of meeting a difficulty.

“She had a quick eye for merit of any sort, and a wonderful power of enlisting its whole energy in her service. Her success, indeed, in securing from the beginning of her reign to its end, with the single exception of Leicester, precisely the right men for the work she set them to do, sprang in great measure from the noblest characteristic of her intellect.

“Elizabeth could talk poetry with Spenser and philosophy with Bruno; she could discuss euphuism with Lyly, and enjoy the chivalry of Essex; she could turn from talk of the latest fashions, to pore with Cecil over despatches and treasury books; she could pass from tracking traitors with Walsingham, to settle points of doctrine with Parker, or to calculate with Frobisher the chances of a northwest passage to the Indies. The versatility and many-sidedness of her mind enabled her to understand every phase of the intellectual movement of her day, and to fix by a sort of instinct on its higher representatives. But the greatness of the queen rests above all on her power over her people. We have had grander and nobler rulers, but none so popular as Elizabeth. It was only on her intellectual side that Elizabeth touched the England of her day. All its moral aspects were simply dead to her. She made her market with equal indifference out of the heroism of William of Orange or the bigotry of Philip. The noblest aims and lives were only counters on her board. No woman ever lived who was so destitute of the sentiment of religion. While the world around her was being swayed more and more by theological beliefs and controversies, Elizabeth was absolutely untouched by them.”

For nineteen long years Queen Elizabeth kept the beautiful Mary, Queen of Scots, in captivity, without right or reason, Mary Stuart’s defenders declare; but Elizabeth’s upholders claim that Mary was guilty of many plots against the English Queen.

It is almost impossible to tread the mazy paths of this epoch with impartial glance and unbiassed opinions. The writers on both sides of these knotty questions are able and apparently conscientious. We can but state both sides, and leave the reader to form his or her own opinion.

That Mary, Queen of Scots, could have been subjected to all the terrible trials and awful accusations which fell upon her seemingly defenceless head and still be entirely innocent of the crimes alleged against her, is quite possible, considering her peculiar situation and the selfish hatred of her enemies; yet those who believe in her guilt bring forth very strong evidence to prove that she connived at murder, and willingly gave herself into the power of the murderer.

This seems too atrocious to claim regarding a woman of the otherwise winning and kindly character of Mary, Queen of Scots. When two entire nations,—and one of them governed by a keen-witted, dissembling, and weakly-jealous queen,—are joined to destroy one poor helpless woman, and that woman a prisoner in the hands of her enemies, with spies at every keyhole and adversaries on every side, hoping to raise themselves to power by her destruction,—it is hardly to be wondered at that evidence can be found or forged which shall aid them in overwhelming her in ruin and at length in death.

Either Mary, Queen of Scots, stands forth in history as the most diabolical instance of hypocritical innocence cloaking the blackest of infamy which the world affords,—for she was too enlightened to be excused as a Cleopatra, and too apparently an embodiment of womanly loveliness and gentleness to be shunned as a Catherine de’ Medici, and therefore all the more dangerous and insidious a tempter to lead others to hideous crimes;—or she was the most pathetic and helpless victim of the most nefarious intrigues, which seemingly none but the devils in Hades could have originated and carried out, to the lasting disgrace of civilized and so-called Christian nations, and the indelible dishonor of the heartless sovereign who abetted and consummated such an atrocious crime.

Either Mary, Queen of Scots, or Elizabeth, Queen of England, must be stamped with disgrace and even infamy; or both of them were victims in the hands of fiendish aspirants for power,—the one, unwillingly, helpless as a prisoner, treacherously betrayed; the other, willingly, tarnishing her royal glory out of weak jealousy veiled under hypocritical protestations of political policy and unselfish devotion to the welfare of her subjects.

If Elizabeth was guilty of putting to death an innocent and persecuted kinswoman, who, relying on her avowed declarations of love and friendship, fled to her for safety, only to meet a lingering and dishonorable imprisonment, and an outrageous and ignominious death, at the hands of her who basely professed the tenderest sympathy and sisterly affection,—then Mary, Queen of Scots’ tragic death is unparalleled in history; for though other queens have died upon the scaffold, the executioner’s hand was not lifted at the command of a near and professedly-devoted relation; nor did an only son behold his mother’s shameful death without raising hand or word to help her when that son was a king upon a throne. That Mary Queen of Scots, rightfully claimed the throne of Scotland is beyond dispute; that she also rightfully claimed her place as successor to Elizabeth for the throne of England, is clearly proven from the fact that her son, James VI. of Scotland, ascended the throne of England, as James I., upon the death of Elizabeth, without any seeming opposition or question of his rights of succession.

Mary Stuart, queen of Scotland, was born on the 7th of December, 1542, in the palace of Linlithgow. The blood of the two rival claimants of the crown of Scotland, John Baliol and Robert Bruce, mingled in the veins of Mary Stuart.

“It was the injustice of Henry VIII.’s will in ignoring the descendants of his eldest sister, and placing those of the youngest in the order of the regal succession next his own children, which rendered it expedient for Mary, Queen of Scots, afterwards to obtain a recognition of her rights from Elizabeth, although in point of legitimacy, Mary’s lineal title to the throne of England was considered by all the Roman Catholics in Europe, and the people still attached to that communion in England and Ireland, as more valid than that of Elizabeth. Elizabeth had, however, been recognized by the Parliament of England as the successor of her late sister, Queen Mary I., and solemnly accepted by the realm on the day of her consecration as the sovereign. It was therefore futile to urge in depreciation of her title the stigma which her unnatural father’s declaration, her unfortunate mother’s admission, and Cranmer’s sentence, had combined to pass upon her legitimacy, for, according to the constitutional laws of England, the crown had taken away all defects that might previously have existed. The demand of Mary Stuart to be acknowledged as her successor was in itself the strongest recognition of the unimpugnable nature of Elizabeth’s rights, and therefore ought to have been met in a friendly spirit, instead of being repelled in a manner which naturally inspired suspicions in the mind of Mary, that Elizabeth intended to supersede her legitimate claims in favor either of one of the descendants of the youngest sister of Margaret Tudor, or to bring forward the Earl of Huntingdon, great-grandson of George, Duke of Clarence.”

It was poor Mary Stuart’s first father-in-law, Henry II. of France, who cost her her head, by prematurely declaring her queen of England, in 1559, and it was largely owing to the base treacheries and plots of her second father-in-law, the Earl of Lennox, that the net-work of vile lies, and slanders were spread about her in Scotland, which afterwards so fatally entrapped her, to which the weak and vacillating Darnley lent himself by turns, and then repenting, sued for pardon, which the forgiving Mary had no sooner granted, than he was again persuaded by her enemies to betray her.

In the midst of the labyrinth of conflicting testimonies and evidences, a thread has been found which, following it to its source, leads us to the English court of Elizabeth, as the first instigator of those infamous lies which so many historians have claimed to be the truth, and which, if so, must perforce stigmatize the unfortunate Mary, Queen of Scots, as guilty beyond doubt of the terrible crimes of which she was accused. But researches have revealed a deeper-laid scheme than was for a long time imagined, and which, if true, brands the English cabinet, and to some extent Elizabeth herself, as an accessory to that scheme,—though we will give her the credit to suppose that her aid was gained by keeping her in ignorance of the vileness of the plot,—with as great, and even greater infamy, than has ever rested upon the probably guiltless name of the persecuted Queen of Scots. In proof whereof, we will give the statements which bear upon this point in their proper place in the sketch of Mary Stuart’s life, as we proceed.

“With the exceptions of Queen Elizabeth, Catherine de’ Medici, and the Countess of Shrewsbury, Mary had no female enemies. No female witnesses from her household came forward to bear testimony against her when it was out of her power to purchase secrecy, if they had been cognizant of her guilt. None of the ladies of her court, whether of the reformed religion or of the old faith—not even Lady Bothwell herself—lifted up her voice to impute blame to her. Mary was attended by noble Scotch gentlewomen in the days of her royal splendor; they clave to her in adversity, through good report and evil report; they shared her prisons, they waited upon her on the scaffold, and forsook not her mangled remains till they had seen them consigned to a long-denied tomb.”

Truly such faithful friendships throughout a life of sorrow and continued aspersions against her character speak volumes on the side of Mary’s innocence.

Mary Stuart was but a few days old, when James V., her royal father, died. When Mary was nine months of age the royal ceremonial of her coronation was solemnized. The baby queen was crowned with all the solemnities usual upon the inauguration of the kings of Scotland. The tiny infant was wrapped in regal robes, and borne in pompous procession from her nursery into the church where Cardinal Beton placed the royal crown upon her baby brow, and her little fingers were made to clasp the sceptre of state, and she was girded with the famous sword which had been borne by so many warlike monarchs of Scotland. And while prelates and peers knelt before the tiny queen in solemn reverence, and royal princes esteemed it an august honor to kiss her baby cheek, the terrified infant, frightened by all these strange rough men around her, wept. Poor baby queen! She began her reign in tears and ended it upon the scaffold.

When Mary Stuart was five years of age she was betrothed to the Dauphin of France, afterwards Francis II., and when she was six years old she was sent to France to be educated. She was at this time remarkable for her exquisite loveliness of form and feature and precocious intellect. Four young Scotch girls of high rank had accompanied the tiny queen from her native land, and as they were all named Mary, they were known as the “Queen’s Maries.” These Scottish maidens were Mary Beton, Mary Seton, Mary Livingston, and Mary Fleming. When in after years one after another of these Maries married and left her service, they were replaced by others bearing the same name, as it was a fancy of the queen always to have four Maries attending her.

Mary astonished the court of France and all the foreign ambassadors there assembled, when only twelve years of age, by reciting with grace and dignity a Latin oration of her own composition, before the king and a distinguished company. Her essay, written in the style of Cicero, was a plea in behalf of the “capacity of females for the highest mental acquirements in literature and the fine arts.”

So beautiful was the young queen at this time that, when on Palm Sunday she, with all the princesses and ladies of the court of France, was carrying a palm branch from church, a woman in the crowd was so dazzled with the beauty and heavenly expression of Mary’s face, that she knelt at the feet of the child in rapturous admiration, exclaiming, “Are you not indeed an angel?”

A portrait of Mary Stuart, formerly in the royal gallery at Fontainebleau, represents her in her fourteenth year. “The color of her hair and eyes which has been as much disputed as the question of her guilt or innocence, is of that rich tint of brown called by the French chestnut; so are her beautiful eyebrows. Her complexion is clear and delicate, but somewhat pale, her nose straight, and her features lovely, refined, and intellectual. She wears a white satin Scotch cap, placed very low on one side of her head, with a rosette of white ostrich feathers, having in the centre a ruby brooch, round which is wrought in gold letters Mariæ Reginæ Scotorum. From this depends a drooping plume formed of small pendant pearls. Her dress is of white damask, fitting closely to her shape, with a small partlet ruff of scalloped point lace, supported by a collar of sapphires and rubies; a girdle of gems to correspond encircles her waist. The dress is made without plaits, gradually widening towards the feet in the shape of a bell, and is fastened down the front with medallions of pearls and precious stones. A royal mantle of pure white is attached to the shoulders of her dress, trimmed with point lace. Her sleeves are rather full, parted with strings of pearls, and finished with small ruffles and jewelled bracelets. Her hands are exquisitely formed. She rests one on the back of a crimson velvet fauteuil, emblazoned with the royal fleurs-de-lys; in the other she holds an embroidered handkerchief. The arms of Scotland, singly, are displayed in a maiden lozenge on the wall above her, for Mary was not yet la Reine Dauphine. She was at that time caressingly called by Catherine de’ Medici and the royal children of France, notre petite Reinette d’Escosse, and was the pet and idol of the glittering court of Valois. ‘Our petite Reinette Escossaise,’ said Catherine de’ Medici, ‘has but to smile to turn the heads of all Frenchmen.’”

When Mary Stuart was in her sixteenth year she was married to the Dauphin, Francis, who was then fifteen years of age. The nuptial ceremonies and festivities were magnificent in the extreme. Never had the famous portals of Nôtre Dame received so lovely a bride. Her appearance is thus described:—

“She was dressed in a robe whiter than the lily, but so glorious in its fashion and decorations, that it would be difficult, nay impossible, for any pen to do justice to its details. Her regal mantle and train were of bluish-grey cut velvet, richly embroidered with white silk and pearls. It was of a marvellous length, full six toises, covered with precious stones, and was supported by young ladies. Mary wore a royal crown on this occasion far more costly than any previous Scottish monarch could ever boast, composed of the finest gold and most exquisite workmanship, set with diamonds, pearls, rubies, and emeralds of inestimable worth, having in the centre a pendent stone computed at five hundred thousand crowns. About her neck hung a matchless jewel, suspended by chains of precious stones, which, from its description, must have been none other than that well known in Scottish records by the familiar name of the Great Harry. This was her own personal property, derived from her royal English great-grandfather, Henry VII., by whom it was presented to her grandmother, Queen Margaret Tudor.” Nôtre Dame blazed with lights, dazzling jewels, and grande toilettes. As the ceremony was concluded, Mary greeted her husband as Francis I., king of Scotland; and all the Scottish nobles bent in homage to him. Handfuls of gold and silver coin were then thrown in the midst of the assembled crowds of people, while French heralds proclaimed the marriage, and cried, “Largesse, largesse!” and the royal couple received the titles of “Queen-Dauphiness,” and “The King Dauphin.”

Magnificent banquets, gorgeous balls, and splendid pageants succeeded the marriage ceremonies in the church. The royal palace was decorated with superb splendor and regal lavishness of display. At the grand ball the beautiful bride, the dazzling queen of Scotland, danced the stately pavon,—a kind of minuet, which was performed by ladies alone. As her train was twelve yards long, and was borne after her by a gentleman, following her in the dance, it was a difficult exercise of grace and skill for the young bride to achieve. After the dance, a novel pageant took place in the grand salon. Suddenly there issued from the Chamber of Requests six gallant ships, with sails of silver gauze fastened to silver masts. Seated on the deck of each vessel, which was propelled by artificial means, was a prince attired in cloth of gold. Each handsome prince wore a mask; and as the ship sailed by the groups of ladies, the chivalrous knight seized a maiden and placed her on the gorgeous throne beside him. In this exciting game the Dauphin caught his bride, the lovely Mary Stuart. But Prince de Condé, champion of the Huguenots, caused great merriment by capturing, as his lady, the wife of his opponent of Romish faith, the Duke de Guise.

The death of Mary I., queen of England, in 1558, opened the way for the fatal step of Henry II. of France, regarding his royal daughter-in-law, the queen of Scotland. At a grand tournament held in honor of the marriage of Elizabeth of France with Philip II. of Spain, Mary, queen of Scotland, was borne to her place in the royal balcony on a kind of triumphal car, emblazoned with the royal escutcheon of England and Scotland, while she was preceded by heralds who cried, “Place! place! pour la Reine d’Angleterre!” And as the people took up the cry, “Vive la Reine d’Angleterre!” they little imagined that they were sounding the death-knell of the lovely wife of their dauphin, whom they all adored. It was the assumption of this title at this time which, twenty-seven years afterwards, cost Mary Stuart her life.

But marriage pageants, funeral obsequies, and coronations followed each other in quick succession. At the very marriage tournament when Henry II. of France had caused his royal daughter-in-law to be proclaimed queen of England, he met with an accident which resulted in his death. Mary’s husband was thereupon crowned king as Francis II. of France. But in less than a year after his coronation, Francis breathed his last, and the beautiful Scottish queen was left a widow. That Mary Stuart was a devoted wife to her French husband, all concede; and Charles IX., brother of Francis, has left this pathetic testimony to her worth. Whenever Charles IX. looked upon Mary’s portrait, he would exclaim: “Ah, Francis! happy brother! Though your life and reign were so short, you were to be envied in this,—that you were the possessor of that angel and the object of her love!”

Mary, Queen of Scots, returned to her native land after the death of her husband, Francis II., and at this point Elizabeth’s injustice begins. Mary sent a courteous request to the queen of England, that she should be allowed to pass to her own kingdom through her cousin’s domains; but this was ungraciously refused. After Mary, Queen of Scots, reached Scotland and assumed royal power there, she was immediately beset by suitors for her hand. The King of Sweden, Philip II. of Spain, and the Archduke Charles, son of the Emperor of Germany, all sued for her hand,—the former and latter in their own behalf, while Philip of Spain desired an alliance between Mary and his heir, Don Carlos. As these three princes had been previous suitors to the English queen, Elizabeth never forgave the insult, and vented all her spite of wounded vanity upon the poor Queen of Scots. Then followed the schemes and intrigues regarding the marriage of the Scottish queen; Elizabeth claiming that she had no right to marry any one whom she (Elizabeth) did not approve. At length Mary took the matter into her own hands; and being really in love with the handsome Darnley, her cousin,—who had thus far veiled his weak and vicious nature beneath his courtly manners and attractive face,—this unfortunate marriage was consummated, and Mary Stuart became the hapless victim of her many enemies.

We cannot recount the details of the many trials heaped upon her by her weak and unworthy husband and his intriguing father, joined with Scottish noblemen, who desired her ruin because she was a Catholic. These earls were not actuated by any fervent zeal in upholding the Protestant religion; but as Scotland was then professedly a Protestant nation, these wily nobles used the prevailing opinions of the people to further their own ambitious schemes. And in denouncing Mary as a Catholic, and urging that she be dethroned, that her infant son might be declared king, they were simply endeavoring to grasp the reins of government with their own hands. These Scottish noblemen were leagued with the English court; but Bothwell headed another faction, which explains the seeming difficulty in regard to her being still imprisoned by the very party who rescued her from Bothwell’s power, and from whom she was obliged to flee to England, to seek the promised protection of the English queen.

With her last dying breath, Queen Elizabeth, perchance unwittingly, substantiated her own treachery, or that of the English cabinet, and acknowledged the rights of Mary, Queen of Scots. When urged to name her successor, she said, “My seat has been the seat of kings, and I will have no rascal to succeed me.” Secretary Cecil ventured to ask her what she meant by those significant words; to which she replied,—thereby intimating that all who were not royal princes were perforce rascals,—“I will be succeeded by a king, and who should that be but the King of Scots.”

In spite of the subtle schemes and wily plotting of the most cunning, keen-witted, and unscrupulous courtiers of those wide-awake and intellectually progressive times, all of them bent upon the destruction of one helpless, imprisoned woman, whose very charms and fascinations and confiding faith in good rather than evil motives, were used by them as the very evidence to convict her of infamous guilt;—whereas, these traits of character are the strongest proof of her innocence;—in spite of all their evil machinations, aided by the jealous vanity of a queen who in other respects evinced a strong mind, and whose reign is regarded as one of the brightest epochs in the world’s history; in spite of all these overwhelming forces conspiring to defame and destroy the hapless Queen of Scots, nevertheless, our higher instincts of humanity intuitively plead for the innocence of this unfortunate Queen Mary, even though, by that very conclusion, we must perforce tarnish the glory of the illustrious Queen of England. For Elizabeth’s acknowledged defects of character harmonize more strongly with such a supposition, than that we should, without violence to our better intuitions, allow that it could be consistent to link with infamy and crime Mary’s equally acknowledged loveliness and kindliness of nature, and devout constancy to what she felt to be vital points in her Christian faith, while at the same time she allowed the most generous liberality of belief to others. For of Mary, Queen of Scots, alone it could be said, what no other sovereign of those days could claim, that she never permitted persecution for religious differences.

That Elizabeth could be dissembling and treacherous when actuated by her weak, jealous vanity, all historians fully prove and frankly acknowledge; that Elizabeth scrupled not even at the death of her former friends, when her petty spite was kindled against them, other instances, such as the execution of the Earl of Essex, whom without doubt Elizabeth loved, yet in a fit of anger condemned to death, most clearly demonstrate. But that Mary, Queen of Scots, could display such traits of character, as all testimony, whether that of friends or foes, are forced to concede to her through long years of imprisonment, while still at heart she was the infamous spirit of evil which her accusers have declared her to be,—a very devil clothed in the likeness of an angel of Paradise,—is against all experiences of human nature, against all analogous instances in history.

The question of Mary Stuart’s guilt or innocence regarding the murder of Darnley and willing marriage with Bothwell, is one thing; but the question of Mary Stuart’s political intrigues with Elizabeth’s enemies is entirely another thing. As regards Mary Stuart’s connivance with her Catholic party during her long imprisonment in England, it is not necessary that she should be proven innocent of such charges to insure her innocence of the horrible infamy regarding the murder of Darnley and willing marriage with his murderer. Were she guilty of these nefarious crimes, all others however black and villanous would be probable. But her innocence regarding those bloody deeds would not be impeached by political intrigues to obtain her rightful liberty. Political scheming was the governmental policy of the times, and he or she who could be the most wily and intriguing diplomate was looked upon as one who had achieved the greatest stroke of genius. Surely in this business none were such adepts as Elizabeth. That Mary Stuart would plot in behalf of her Catholic belief would not prove that she was capable of the vilest crimes. And though one should frankly acknowledge that the death of Mary, Queen of Scots, was an advantage to the cause of Protestantism, by weakening Catholicism in Scotland and England, it would not consequently be necessary to prove that her death was the evidence of any crime on her part, save the insatiate thirst for power, and consequent scheming and plotting therefor, of which none of the sovereigns of her time could be said to be guiltless.

Three things are asserted by those who condemn Mary, Queen of the Scots: that she was guilty of murder, and the vilest crimes of which a woman’s nature can be accused; that she was guilty of political intrigues as a Catholic fanatic in behalf of her Roman faith; or that she was without any religious belief, merely employing religion as a cloak to her crimes. Now, of course, if she were guilty of the first accusation, no one could attempt to deny the others; but though she were guilty of both the last accusations, it would not imply that, therefore, she was necessarily guilty of murder and revolting pollution.

The historians who defend Mary, Queen of Scots, claim that she was innocent, not only of connivance at murder and infamous vice, but that she was also free from all political intrigues, either in defence of her ambitious greed for power, or in upholding her religious fanaticism; while the historians who denounce Mary Stuart declare that she was guilty of all and every crime, both as wife, woman, and fanatic intriguer. From a close comparison of given evidence on both sides, the truth would seem to lie between them; for the proofs seem the stronger which free Mary, Queen of Scots, of connivance at murder, and vile pollution, while probabilities lean toward the supposition that she knew of, if she did not indeed encourage, plots amongst the enemies of England; but as she was unjustly imprisoned by the English, this was only political scheming; and though it might cost her her head, from political expediency, it is no proof at all that she was therefore guilty also of the most shocking and inexpiable corruption. The plea of that political expediency would of course remove infamy from the English cabinet and their sovereign, as regards the one act of decapitating their dangerous prisoner; but at the same time, the same plea of political expediency would excuse the plotting of Mary, Queen of Scots, while her substantiated innocence of the viler and more heinous crimes brought against her character as a wife and a woman, would at the same time heap upon the English government and Elizabeth the deepest and most demoniacal infamy, in conniving at such atrocious and brutal lies against the character and purity of a helpless woman, that they might strengthen their political schemes against her life.

The question of the effect of her downfall upon the world, as regards the upholding of Protestantism, and the check to the onrush of inquisitorial Catholicism, is a very different matter from the question regarding her innocence as a wife and a woman.

That her downfall strengthened Protestantism will be conceded; and that her death from political expediency might have been required may not be denied; which concession would not blot out the treachery of Elizabeth and her ministers, nor would it involve the acknowledgment of Mary Stuart’s guilt of aught save political plotting, which, had she been the queen on the throne rather than the queen in the prison, would have been looked upon as justifiable strategy.

There is no doubt that the quarrel of Henry VIII. with the Pope and Romish Church was a great factor in the glorious struggle for religious liberty, and the strengthening of the power of the Reformation, which has filled not only Europe, but the world, with the effulgent light of a broader Christian civilization. But God can make the “very wrath of man to praise him,” and because Henry VIII. was an unconscious and unwilling instrument in the hands of the Almighty, the praise is not to the wicked king, but to an overruling Providence.

If Mary Stuart died for her religion, even though that faith was Catholicism, Protestantism must not fanatically refuse her the martyr’s crown. But if Mary Stuart and Elizabeth were both women utterly devoid of religious principle,—and this Elizabeth’s warmest admirers declare concerning herself, as well as Mary Stuart,—then were these two women engaged in one of the most subtle, ingenious, and well-matched political games which was ever played upon the stage of history; and in this game, Elizabeth showed herself to be the most cunning schemer who ever wore a victor’s crown, while Mary Stuart displayed the most heroic and unconquerable fortitude ever evinced by dying gladiator when vanquished in the Roman amphitheatre.

Unless volumes were written upon the subject, it would be an impossibility to give a clear recital of the statements made by the partisans and defamers of Mary Stuart. According to one side, the famous “Silver-casket Letters” are proved by acts of the Scottish Parliament and many eminent authorities to have been forgeries; and the whole scheme of Rizzio’s and Darnley’s murder to have been concocted in the English cabinet. According to other acts of Parliament and other eminent authorities, the famous “Silver-casket Letters” are pronounced genuine and convincing proofs of Mary’s guilt of conniving at Darnley’s murder, and most shamelessly marrying his murderer.

Now if the “Casket Letters” are genuine, there indeed remains no doubt of Mary’s guilt. But if the act of the Scottish Parliament, framed Dec. 20, 1567, for Bothwell’s forfeiture, which act of Parliament was signed by James Makgill, clerk-register (and which document, it is stated, may be consulted in the register-house, Edinburgh, in the original Latin), be genuine, the “Casket Letters” must be spurious, and Mary’s innocence would be proved. It is only upon these “Silver-casket Letters” that her defamers rest the most important proof of her abetting Darnley’s death and marrying Bothwell willingly, knowing that he was her husband’s murderer. In these forged letters, Mary is made to plan with Bothwell the death of Darnley, and her own abduction with a man who had not yet procured a divorce from his wife, whom only six months before he had married with the queen’s most open consent.

This act of Parliament for the forfeiture of Bothwell and sixty-four of his accomplices, after reciting his murder of the “late King Henry,” proceeds in these words: “And also for their treasonable interception of the most noble person of our most illustrious mother, Mary, Queen of Scots, on her way from Linlithgow to the town of Edinburgh, near the bridges vulgarly called ‘Foul Bridges,’ besetting her with a thousand armed men, equipped in manner of war, in the month of April last. She suspecting no evil from any of her subjects, and least of all from the Earl of Bothwell, toward whom she had shown as great offers of liberality and benevolence as prince could show to good subject,—he by force and violence treasonably seized her most noble person; put violent hands upon her, not permitting her to enter her own town of Edinburgh in peace, but carried her away that same night to the Castle of Dunbar, against her will; and there detained her as his prisoner for about twelve days.”

This act of Parliament, after specifying the nefarious crime committed against her, in more explicit language, recites: “That, after detaining Queen Mary’s most noble person by force and violence twelve days, or thereabouts, at Dunbar Castle, Bothwell compelled her by fear, under circumstances such as might befall the most courageous woman in the world, to promise that she would as soon as possible contract marriage with him,—all which things were plotted and planned by the said earl and the persons aforesaid, of long time before, even before their aforesaid conspiracy and parricide (the murder of Darnley), notwithstanding that at the same time James, Earl of Bothwell, was bound in marriage to an honorable lady, Janet Gordon, from whom not only was he not divorced, but no process of divorce was begun. And in his nefarious and treasonable crimes and purposes continuing and persevering, he kept and detained the most noble person of our said dearest mother in firm custody and durance, by force and masterful hand of his armed friends and dependants, until the sixth day of May last past; on which day, still accompanied by a great number of armed men, he carried her to the Castle of Edinburgh, which was then in his power, and there imprisoned her, and compelled her to remain until the eleventh of the said month, on which day, still accompanied by a great number of armed men, that he might better color his treasonable and nefarious crimes and purposes, he carried her to our palace of Holyrood, and so within four days compelled her to contract marriage with him.”

Regarding this act of Parliament, Agnes Strickland, the English historian, says: “The facts chronicled in the parliamentary record, which are officially attested by the signature of James Makgill of Rankeillour, the clerk-register, demonstrate at once the falsehood of his patron, the Earl of Murray’s journal, of Buchanan’s ‘Detection’ and history of Mary’s reign, of the absurd paper published by Murray under the name of ‘French Paris’s Second Confession,’ and the supposititious letters produced by Morton for the defamation of the queen. These are all refuted by the act of Parliament, which asserts the treasonable constraint that was put on the queen’s will; and that act, be it remembered, was framed, and more than that, proclaimed by the heralds in the ears of the people, six months after the date assigned by Morton to the discovery of the letters which he produced as evidences of a guilty collusion and correspondence between the queen and Bothwell. The act was framed within seven months after the offence was perpetrated; and it behooved to be correct, because several persons assisted in that Parliament, as Huntley, Lethington, Sir James Melville, and others, who were not only present when the abduction was effected, but were carried away with their royal mistress as prisoners to Dunbar.”

Now let it be remembered that these witnesses for her innocence were, with the exception of the faithful Sir James Melville, and perhaps one or two others, no friends of Mary, Queen of Scots, but were the very parties in league with the English cabinet for her overthrow; and as Bothwell was not in this league, but was plotting only for his own scheme of being raised to the throne by marriage with Mary Stuart, these framers of this act of Parliament, exonerating Mary and denouncing Bothwell, were not acting through favor of her; and therefore this strong and overwhelming evidence comes from her very foes.

The following letter is from Mary Stuart to the Pope when she was at last out of the power of Bothwell. This letter is from the collection of Prince Labanoff: “Lettres de Marie Stuart, from the Secret Archives of the Vatican at Rome,”—and will reveal Mary’s feelings on the subject: “Tell to his Holiness,” writes she to her accredited envoy, “the grief we suffered when we were made prisoner by one of our subjects, the Earl of Bothwell, and led as prisoner with the Earl of Huntley the Chancellor, and the nobleman, our Secretary, together to the Castle of Dunbar, and after to the Castle of Edinburgh, where we were detained against our will in the hands of the said Earl of Bothwell, until such time as he had procured a pretended divorce between him and the sister of the said Lord of Huntley, his wife, our near relative; and we were constrained to yield our consent, yet against our will, to him. Therefore your Holiness is supplicated to take order on this, that we are made quit of the said indignity by means of a process at Rome, and commission sent to Scotland, to the bishops and other Catholic judges as your Holiness seemeth best.”

On the other hand, Mr. Froude, the English historian, does not refute this act of Parliament, but as evidence of Mary’s guilt, which he most vehemently declares, cites another act of Parliament, and states the following:—

“The Parliament met on the 15th of December. A series of acts embodying the resolutions of the Council were prepared by the Lords of the Articles,—among them were Huntley and Argyle. The abdication of Lochleven, the coronation of James, and the regency of Murray were successively declared to have been lawful; and lastly, in an act ‘anent the retention of their sovereign Lord’s mother’s person,’ the genuineness of the evidence by which her share in the murder was proved was accepted as beyond doubt or question.

“When the measure was laid before Parliament, Lord Herries, with one or two others, protested, not against the truth of the charges, but ‘against an act which was prejudicial to the honor, power, and estate of the Queen.’ But their objections were overruled. The acts were passed; the last and most important declaring that ‘the taking of arms by the lords and barons, the apprehension of the queen’s person, and generally all other things spoken and done by them to that effect, since the 10th of February last period, were caused by the said queen’s own default.’ It was most certain, from divers her privy letters, written wholly with her own hand, to the Earl of Bothwell, and by her ungodly and dishonorable proceeding to a pretended marriage with him, that she was privy art and part of the device and deed of the murder, and therefore justly deserved whatever had been done to her. Indirect counsel and means had been used to hold back the knowledge of the truth, yet all men were fully persuaded in their hearts of the authors and devisers of the fact. The nobility perceiving the queen so thrall and so blindly affectionate to the tyrant, and perceiving also that both he and she had conspired together such horrible cruelty, they had at length taken up arms to punish them.”

Surely both of these acts of Parliament cannot be trustworthy. Froude refers to Anderson’s Collection as his authority; Miss Strickland, to the register-house, Edinburgh, where the act may be seen in the original Latin. According to one, Mary, Queen of Scots is most clearly proven innocent; according to the other, Mary is most clearly proven guilty. The question therefore rests on the validity of the two acts. The reader may choose between them.

Regarding the famous “Silver-casket Letters,” these two English authorities thus comment. Miss Strickland says: “Several hundreds of Mary Stuart’s genuine letters are now before the public, commencing with those she wrote to her mother in her artless childhood. Not one of these bears the slightest analogy, either in style, sentiment or diction, with the eight suspicious documents she is alleged to have written. But argument is rendered unnecessary by the fact that the discovery of letters so discrepant with anything ever written, ever said or done, by Mary Stuart, rests solely on the testimony of Morton, one of the conspirators in the murder of Darnley. Prince Labanoff, who has devoted his life to the collection and verification of Mary Stuart’s letters, rejects this supposititious series, because, as he briefly observes, ‘there is nothing to prove their authenticity’; while the elder Tytler, who, as a lord of session, or judge, had been accustomed to study and collate evidences in the criminal courts of Scotland, has written two able volumes to expose their fallacies, under the title of ‘A Critical Enquiry into the Evidences.’”

Dr. Henry, the historian of England and Scotland, gave his private and most impartial opinion on this controversy in a letter to William Tytler, printed in “Transactions of Scottish Antiquarian Society,” in these words: “I have been long convinced that the unfortunate Queen Mary was basely betrayed and cruelly oppressed during her life, and calumniated after her death. Many things contributed to involve her in difficulties and dangers on her return to Scotland; her invincible adherence to her religion, her implicit submission to the dictates of her French friends, her having roused the jealousy of Elizabeth by assuming the English arms, the ambition of her brother James, and the faithless, plotting characters of others near her person,—in a word, an invisible political net seemed to have been spread around her, from which it was hardly possible for her to escape. Your efforts, sir, to relieve the memory of a much injured princess from a load of calumny are generous and commendable, and I can assure you they have not been unsuccessful. There is a great and general change in the sentiments of the public on that subject. He would be a bold man who should publish a history of Queen Mary now in the same strain with our two late historians,—Malcolm Laing and Robertson, whose sophistries were rightly estimated by that clear-headed and honest historian, Dr. Henry. Dr. Johnson, a person of a very different way of thinking from either, pronounced a most decided opinion in favor of Mary’s innocence, and expressed his firm conviction ‘that the Silver-casket Letters were spurious, and would never again be brought forward as historic evidences.’”

Regarding these same “Silver-casket Letters,” Froude says: “These letters were found in the celebrated casket with the others to which reference was made in the preceding volume; I accept them as genuine, because, as will be seen, they were submitted to the scrutiny of almost the entire English peerage, and especially to those among the peers who were most interested in discovering them to be forged, and by them admitted to be indisputably in the handwriting of the Queen of Scots; because the letters in the text especially refer to conversations with Lord Huntley, who was then and always one of Mary Stuart’s truest adherents,—conversations which he could have denied had they been false, and which he never did deny; because their contents were confirmed in every particular unfavorable to the queen by a Catholic informant of the Spanish ambassador, who hurried from the spot to London immediately after the final catastrophe for which they prepared the way; and lastly, because there is no ground whatever to doubt the genuineness of the entire set of the casket-letters, except such as arises from the hardy and long-continued but entirely baseless denial of interested or sentimental partisans.”

But in connection with Mr. Froude’s declaration that his faith rests on them because they were submitted to the English Peerage, impartial statement of evidence demands another comparison between these conflicting testimonies upon a different link in the chain of evidence for and against the guilt of Mary Stuart. Randolph was the English ambassador at the court of Scotland, and in some of his letters to Leicester he has revealed the English plotting and connivance in the scheme to ruin Mary, Queen of Scots. Regarding this point Miss Strickland says:—

“In the selfsame letter which records the round of banquets, masks, and princely pleasures, the English Mephistopheles, Randolph, exultingly unfolds to Leicester the items of the black budget prepared with his approval, against the meeting of the Scottish Parliament, by the unscrupulous coalition of traitors who were secretly allied with their sovereign’s husband and his father in a dastardly bond for murder, premeditated in cold blood, and intended to be perpetrated in the presence of their queen; and the crime was to be justified, as such deeds generally are, by slander.

“‘I know now for certain,’ writes he, ‘that this queen repenteth her marriage,—that she hateth him and all his kin. I know that he knoweth himself that he hath a partner in play and game with him. I know that there are practices in hand, contrived between the father and the son, to come by the crown against her will. I know that if it take effect, which is intended, David, with the consent of the king, shall have his throat cut within these ten days. Many thing grieveouser, and worse than these are brought to my ears, yea, of things intended against her own person, which, because I think better to keep secret than to write to Mr. Secretary, I speak not of them, but now to your lordship.’ By one of the secret articles of the atrocious pact to which our worthy ambassador alludes, the life-long imprisonment of Mary was agreed, and her death, in case of her attempting to resist the transfer of the whole power of the crown to the ungrateful consort she had associated in her regality; and to this wrong Cecil, Bedford, and Elizabeth tacitly consented.”

Such was the villanous treachery of Darnley and his father, leagued with the English ministers and malcontents in Scotland, headed by Murray, the plotting half-brother of the queen, against Mary Stuart, who time and again received her inconstant and petulant husband into favor, forgiving his outrageous behavior towards her. But Darnley little knew the schemes of his vile fellow-conspirators. They but used him as a tool, as long as he could avail their purposes, and then blew him up with gunpowder, when they had matured their infamous plans, so that his death should seemingly be the work of his shamefully abused and marvellously forbearing wife.

Miss Strickland further says:—

“A startling light is thrown by a careful collation of the above letters of Randolph to Leicester and Throckmorton on the agency, as well as the incentives, employed in the successive Edinburgh assassinations of Mary Stuart’s faithful and incorruptible minister, David Rizzio, in March, 1566, and that of her husband in February, 1567, which led to the deposition of that unfortunate princess and the transfer of the government of Scotland to the sworn creatures of the English sovereign, a great but diabolical stroke of policy. The cool revelation of our unscrupulous ambassador, that the faithful minister who would not barter his royal mistress’s interests for English gold, ‘would have his throat cut within ten days,’ is sufficient proof of his iniquitous coalition in the murderous confederacy against the first victim of the English cabinet. His hostile expressions regarding Mary’s husband, with whom he was at that very moment enleagued in the secret intrigues for obtaining the signatures of Murray and the banished lords to the bond for the murder of Rizzio, are no less worthy of observation, together with his earnest deprecation of Mary and her husband ever succeeding to the throne of England, and the emphatic desire he expressed to Throckmorton that ‘something may be done to preclude the possibility of such a contingency.’

“This subtle diplomatist first excited and then worked on the natural fears of better men than either himself, Leicester, or Throckmorton, to wink at, if not to sanction, the systematic train of political villany to which David Rizzio, Henry Stuart, and Mary Stuart were the successive victims. After the consummation of these astute schemes of wickedness—when Rizzio and Darnley were festering in their untimely graves, and the more pitiable survivor, Mary Stuart, languishing in her damp, noisome prison-room in Tutbury Castle, her infant son set up as a puppet king, to color the usurpation of the murderers of his father and her defamers, and her realm convulsed with civil strife—‘then,’ observes Sir James Melville, ‘as Nero stood upon a high part of Rome to see the town burning, which he had caused to be set on fire, so Master Randolph delighted to see such fire kindled in Scotland, and by his writings to some in the court of England, glorified himself to have brought it to pass in such sort that it could not be easily slokened (slaked) again.’”

In proof of the importance of this link in the chain of evidence, we will quote Mr. Froude’s own words: “As the vindication of the conduct of the English government proceeds on the assumption of her guilt, so the determination of her innocence will equally be the absolute condemnation of Elizabeth and Elizabeth’s advisers.”

There is only one other point in this evidence for and against the guilt of Mary Stuart, which will be cited. Regarding the famous confessions of Paris, Mr. Froude says:—

“Nicholas Hubert, alias French Paris, was Bothwell’s page. He was taken privately to St. Andrews, where the Regent happened to be, and examined by George Buchanan, Robert Ramsey, Murray’s steward, and John Wood, his confidential secretary. Paris made two depositions: the first not touching Mary Stuart, the second fatally implicating her. This last was read over in his presence. He signed it, and was then executed, that there might be no retraction or contradiction.”

Regarding these confessions, Agnes Strickland says:—

“Nothing can, in fact, afford clearer evidence of Mary’s ignorance of the plot of her husband’s murder than this first confession of Hubert. Malcolm Laing, the most able of all the writers who have adopted the self-interested calumnies of the conspirators against Mary, put forth by their venal organ, Buchanan, and the political agents of Cecil, insists on the authenticity and credibility of this document. It contains, indeed, such strong internal evidences of reality that we fully coincide with him in its being genuine evidence, and for this reason reject the so-called second confession of Nicholas Hubert, or French Paris, as spurious, because one or the other must be false, and the second is palpably a fabrication between Murray and his secretary, Alexander Hay, to bolster up the forged letters and defame the queen. As poor Hubert could not write, it was unlikely he could read the paper to which Murray’s secretary made him put his mark. He had no trial, and though Queen Elizabeth requested he might be sent to London, Murray hanged him, that he might not contradict what had been put forth in his name.”

We mention Agnes Strickland, in these comparisons with the testimony of Froude, because she was also an English writer; and she quotes from the very same authorities, for nearly all of the historians, letters, state papers, and authorities are cited by Miss Strickland which are used by Froude in proof of his statements. We also quote Agnes Strickland because her works are within the reach of every one, and those desiring to investigate the evidences on both sides will find her authorities in the foot-notes of her “English and Scottish Queens,” and in separate lives of Mary Stuart and Elizabeth, in her historical series. It is not the authority of Agnes Strickland as against that of Froude, but the weight of the many authorities and state papers which both refer to, as evidence in proof of the different sides they take upon this perplexing question. Froude pronounces Mary Stuart as probably innocent of all evil intent regarding Rizzio, and exonerates her of any improper conduct with him further than a good-natured condescension towards one in her employ. But if Mary Stuart’s guilt with Bothwell is proven, it is idle to talk of her innocence with Rizzio.

Mary Stuart was rescued from the power of the infamous Bothwell, and he was obliged to flee the country, and died in exile ten years after. But poor abused Mary was not yet free from her enemies. The very men who rescued her from Bothwell were leagued with England, with the ambitious Murray at their head. Their plan was now to get rid of the queen and get hold of the baby prince, that they might in his name get possession of the government. And with this scheme England and Elizabeth were well pleased, forsooth, for by bribes and threats the regent of the baby king could be held in England’s power. As these nefarious schemers planned, so did they execute. Queen Mary was apparently aided by them to escape the power of Bothwell, but so cruelly was she treated that it was but an exchange of jailors. Poor, slandered, persecuted queen, thinking good of every one, she was betrayed on every hand. Husband, father-in-law, half-brother, Scottish ministers, and England’s courtiers, incited by a jealous cousin-queen, all plotted and counter-plotted and wove the web so closely around her that there was no escape. She was betrayed by one party, only to find herself more cruelly betrayed by her supposed deliverers.

To whom could she turn? Elizabeth had treacherously and hypocritically sympathized with her terrible woes. Elizabeth was a woman, and a cousin, and a queen; would she not succor her? and so the confiding heart of Mary, Queen of Scots, thinking no evil of those who professed kindness, fled to England and delivered herself unwittingly into the hands of her very worst foe. The poor fly now was entrapped, and the wily spider prepared her final doom.

The captive Queen of Scots had been transferred from prison to prison, each day more closely confined, each day treated with less respect and greater cruelty. At length Mary, Queen of Scots, was brought to trial and accused of high treason. Mary Stuart had neither advocates, counsel, nor documents; no one was allowed to plead for her, but notwithstanding, for two days, the ablest lawyers in England were held in check by her wit, skill, and marvellous presence of mind. Mary demanded to be heard by Parliament, and to be permitted to see the queen in person. But this was denied her, and sentence of death was passed upon her. It was at this time that Henry III., of France, endeavored to awaken in the heart of James VI., of Scotland, some sentiments of regard for his helpless mother. If the conduct of the King of Scotland shocked the son of Catherine de’ Medici, what severer condemnation of the unnatural treatment of James VI. can be required?

Such is Guizot’s comment upon the treatment of the young Scottish king towards his unfortunate mother, whose pitiable misfortunes roused many princes in Europe to espouse her cause and endeavor to effect her freedom, which efforts in the end proved most disastrous, as they only brought down greater accusations upon her head.

Some writers do declare, however, that James VI., of Scotland, did make some feeble efforts in her behalf, which were quickly made unavailing through the wily cunning of Elizabeth and her scheming ministers.

When her sentence was read to the hapless Queen of Scots, Mary made the sign of the cross and calmly said “that death was welcome, but that she had not expected after having being detained twenty years in prison that her sister Elizabeth would thus dispose of her.” At the same time Mary placed her hand upon a book beside her, and swore a solemn oath that she had never contemplated nor sought the death of Elizabeth.

“That is a popish Bible,” exclaimed the Earl of Kent, rudely; “your oath is of no value.”

“It is a Catholic testament,” said the queen with calm dignity, “and therefore, my lord, as I believe that to be the true version, my oath is the more to be relied on.”

Some writers claim that Elizabeth did not herself sign the death-warrant of Mary, Queen of Scots, but tacitly consenting thereto, her signature was at last forged by one Thomas Harrison, a private and confidential secretary of Sir Francis Walsingham. According to Elizabeth’s secretary, Davison, the warrant had been ready for six weeks when the queen signed it in private, consigning it to the Secretary of State, Davison, “without other orders,” as she afterwards declared. Regarding Harrison’s confession, which did not come to light until twenty years after Mary’s execution, it is stated that a document was found, purporting to be a Star-Chamber investigation, dated 1606. It is a deposition, attested by the signatures of two persons of the names of Mayer and Macaw, affirming, “that the late Thomas Harrison, a private and confidential secretary of the late Sir Francis Walsingham, did voluntarily acknowledge to them that, in conjunction with Thomas Phillipps and Maude, he, by the direction of his master, Sir Francis Walsingham, added to the letters of the late queen of Scotland those passages that were afterwards brought in evidence against her, and for which she was condemned to suffer death; and that he was employed by his said master, Sir Francis Walsingham, to forge Queen Elizabeth’s signature to the death-warrant of the Queen of Scots, which none of her ministers could ever induce her to sign; and that he did this with the knowledge and assent of four of her principal ministers of state.”

Regarding this point, Miss Strickland, in her life of Queen Elizabeth, says: “If she did not sign the warrant for Mary’s execution,—and we have only Davison’s asseveration in proof that she did,—then was her ignorance of the consummation real, her tears and lamentations unaffected, and her indignation against her ministers no grimace.”

But were this the case, why did Elizabeth not clear her own reputation from the stain of this infamous deed by denouncing her unscrupulous ministers who had dared thus tamper with her royal name and royal authority? Miss Strickland claims that she could not, giving the reason in these words: “The position in which her ministers had placed Elizabeth, was the more painful because, unless she could have brought them to a public trial, convicted them of the treasonable crime of procuring her royal signature to be forged, she could not explain the offence of which they had been guilty. The impossibility of proclaiming the whole truth, rendered her passionate protestations of her own innocence not only unsatisfactory, but apparently false and equivocating. While she denied the deed, she was in a manner compelled to act as if it were her own, being unable to inflict condign punishment on the subtle junta who had combined to make unauthorized use of her name for the immolation of the heiress-presumptive of the crown.”

But if Elizabeth was innocent of the death of Mary, Queen of Scots, it seems evident that with her imperious nature, she would have most daringly and publicly resented and punished such audacious villany. Had she in reality desired the death of Mary, and yet refused to sign the warrant, and had her name been forged upon it, this would have given her the very opportunity to clear her own name from infamy and the condemnation of the powers of Europe, which she well knew this execution would call forth; and yet the very end she dared to wish for, if not to command, would have been accomplished, and the blame would rest upon others rather than herself.

That Elizabeth desired the death of Mary all her previous conduct would prove; and if that death was accomplished at last through the crimes of others, unknown to the queen of England, surely she could not have had a better opportunity for proving her own innocence than the denunciation of the treacherous ministers who had committed the crime. That she denounced them it is true; but the strength and manner of those denunciations were more in keeping with the supposition that she was hypocritically screening her own aid and connivance in the treachery, than that they had dared commit so criminal a villany as the forging of her own royal name, and the commission of so grave an offence upon the strength of that forged signature.

At six o’clock on the fatal morning of the 8th of February, 1587, Mary Stuart told her ladies that “she had but two hours to live, and bade them dress her as for a festival.” The particulars of the last toilette have been preserved. “She wore a widow’s dress of black velvet, spangled over with gold, a black satin pourpoint and kirtle, and under these a petticoat of crimson velvet, with a body of the same color, and a white veil of the most delicate texture, of the fashion worn by princesses of the highest rank, thrown over her coif and descending to the ground. She wore a pomander chain, and an Agnus Dei about her neck, and a pair of beads at her girdle, with a cross.”

Mary Stuart had gained the reluctant consent of her inhuman jailers, that her faithful ladies, Jane Kennedy and Elizabeth Curie, should attend her in her last moments. This had been stoutly refused at first, but the eloquent exclamation of the royal captive, “I am cousin to your queen, descended of the blood-royal of Henry VII., a married queen of France, and the anointed queen of Scotland!” at length shamed them into granting this last request.

When the still-beautiful, heroic Mary Stuart entered the hall of death, followed by her faithful attendants, she gazed upon the sable scaffold, the dread block, the gleaming axe, and the revolting executioner, with calm and undaunted courage, manifesting by her majestic and intrepid demeanor, and the angelic sweetness of her countenance, that in spite of calumny and hostile hosts of pitiless foes, Mary, Queen of Scots could face the world and death undismayed.

MARY STUART LED TO EXECUTION

Drawing by Gyula Benczur.

“Weep not, my good Melville!” said Mary Stuart to the faithful servant who threw himself in a paroxysm of grief at her feet. “Weep not for me! Thou shouldst rather rejoice that thou shalt now see the end of the long troubles of Mary Stuart; know, Melville, that this world is but vanity and full of sorrows. I am Catholic, thou Protestant, but as there is but one Christ, I charge thee in His name to bear witness that I die firm to my religion, a true Scotchwoman, and true to France. Commend me to my dearest and most sweet son. Tell him I have done nothing to prejudice him in his realm, nor to disparage his dignity, and if he will live in the fear of God, I doubt not he shall do well. Tell him, from my example, never to rely too much on human aid, but to seek that which is from above. If he follow my advice, he shall have the blessing of God in heaven, as I now give him mine on earth.”

As Mary Stuart ascended the steps of the scaffold, Sir Amyas Paulet, her last jailer, tendered his hand to aid her. With queenly courtesy she accepted it, saying: “I thank you, sir; this is the last trouble I shall ever give you.”

When her upper garments had been removed, she remained clothed in her petticoat of crimson velvet, with bodice and sleeves of the same material. As Jane Kennedy drew forth the gold-bordered handkerchief Mary had given her to bind her eyes, the faithful lady could not restrain her weeping. But Mary placed her finger on her lips, saying tenderly: “Hush! I have promised you would make no outcry; weep not, but pray for me.”

When the handkerchief was pinned over the eyes of her loved mistress Jane was forced to retire, and Mary Stuart was left alone upon the scaffold with her executioners. Kneeling on the cushion, the heroic Queen of Scots repeated with unfaltering voice: “In te Domine speravi” (In thee, Lord, have I hoped). As she was blindfolded she was then led by the executioner to the block, upon which she bowed her head without the least hesitation, exclaiming in firm and clear tones, “In manus tuas.” “Into thy hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit,” and the beautiful lips closed forever. At the first blow the agitated executioner missed his aim, and inflicted a deep wound on the side of the skull. No groan nor cry escaped the suffering victim, but the convulsion of her features evinced her terrible pain. At the third blow the “butcher work” was accomplished, and the beautiful head of the hapless Queen of Scots, streaming with blood, was held up to the gaze of the people, as holding aloft this bloody and horrible trophy of his fiendish deed, the executioner cried, “So perish all Queen Elizabeth’s enemies!”

But neither wily ministers, nor plotting knaves, nor jealous hate, nor obedient executioners, could rid Queen Elizabeth of her last great foe, who, in spite of all her schemes, and tears, and imprecations, would soon snatch the royal diadem from her brow, and take the sceptre from her clutching hands, and tear the royal ermine from her tottering form, and close her defiant eyes. The King of Terrors could neither be bribed, nor menaced, nor defeated, though she should cry in tortured agony, “My kingdom for an hour of time!” Steadily this conqueror approached, though she fought desperately to elude his grasp. Far differently did Elizabeth meet her doom from the heroic Queen of Scots. Refusing to go to bed lest she should be deemed dying, Elizabeth commanded that pillows should be piled for her on the floor; and there, writhing in agony of body and terror of mind, she spent her last hours. Now calling upon her chaplain to pray, and then muttering in angry complainings when her ministers requested her to name her successor. At length she was so weak that she could no longer speak, and she ordered by signs that the Archbishop of Canterbury should continue to pray. This the old man did until he was utterly exhausted, the dying queen each time motioning him to proceed, when he endeavored to stop from very weariness. Meanwhile her attendants watched her waning breath, with eager impatience to greet the coming king. But even in death their wily vigilance was overreached by the apparent sleep of their helpless sovereign, and Elizabeth had been dead several hours before it was discovered by her scheming ministers, who were eagerly awaiting the signal announcing her demise, that they might be the first to shout “God save James I.! king of England, Ireland and Scotland!”

Mr. Froude thus ably sums up the salient points in the character and reign of Elizabeth:—

“The years which followed the defeat of the Armada were rich in events of profound national importance. They were years of splendor and triumph. The flag of England became supreme on the seas; English commerce penetrated to the farthest corners of the Old World, and English colonies rooted themselves on the shores of the New. The national intellect, strung by excitement of sixty years, took shape in a literature which is an eternal possession to mankind, while the incipient struggles of the two parties in the Anglican church prepared the way for the conflicts of the coming century, and the second act of the Reformation. The Catholic England with which the century opened, the England of dominant church, and monasteries, and pilgrimages, became the England of progressive intelligence; and the question whether the nation was to pass a second time through the farce of a reconciliation with Rome was answered once and forever by the cannon of Sir Francis Drake. The action before Gravelines of the 30th of July, 1588, decided the largest problems ever submitted in the history of mankind to the arbitrement of force. Beyond and beside the immediate fate of England, it decided that Philip’s revolted provinces should never be reannexed to the Spanish Crown. It broke the back of Spain, sealed the fate of the Duke of Guise, and though it could not prevent the civil war, it assured the ultimate succession of the king of Navarre. In its remoter consequences it determined the fate of the Reformation in Germany; for had Philip been victorious the League must have been immediately triumphant; the power of France would have been on the side of Spain and the Jesuits, and the thirty years’ war would either have never been begun, or would have been brought to a swift conclusion. It furnished James of Scotland with conclusive reasons for remaining a Protestant, and for eschewing forever the forbidden fruit of popery; and thus it secured his tranquil accession to the throne of England when Elizabeth passed away. Finally, it was the sermon which completed the conversion of the English nation, and transformed the Catholics into Anglicans.

“While Parliament was busy with the condition of the people, the concerns of the Church were taken in hand by the queen herself. For Protestantism Elizabeth had never concealed her dislike and contempt. She hated to acknowledge any fellowship in religion either with Scots, Dutch, or Huguenots. She represented herself to foreign ambassadors as a Catholic in everything, except in allegiance to the papacy. Even for the Church of England, of which she was the supreme governor, she affected no particular respect.

“The want of wisdom shown in the persecution of the Nonconformists was demonstrated by the event. Puritanism was a living force in England; Catholicism was a dying superstition. Puritanism had saved Elizabeth’s crown; Catholicism was a hot-bed of disloyalty. She found herself compelled against her will to become the patron of heretics and rebels, in whose objects she had no interest and in whose theology she had no belief. She resented the necessity while she submitted to it, and her vacillations are explained by the reluctance with which each successive step was forced upon her on a road which she detested. It would have been easy for a Protestant to be decided. It would have been easy for a Catholic to be decided. To Elizabeth the speculations of so-called divines were but as ropes of sand and sea-slime leading to the moon, and the doctrines for which they were rending each other to pieces a dream of fools or enthusiasts. Unfortunately her keenness of insight was not combined with any profound concern for serious things. She saw through the forms in which religion presented itself to the world. She had none the more any larger or deeper conviction of her own. She was without the intellectual emotions which give human character its consistency and power.

“Elizabeth could rarely bring herself to sign the death-warrant of a nobleman, yet without compunction she could order Yorkshire peasants to be hung in scores by martial law. She was most remorseless when she ought to have been most forbearing, and lenient when she ought to have been stern.

“Vain as she was of her own sagacity, she never modified a course recommended to her by Burleigh, without injury both to the realm and to herself. The great results of her reign were the fruits of a policy which was not her own, and which she starved and mutilated when energy and completeness were needed.

“The greatest achievement in English history, the ‘breaking the bonds of Rome,’ and the establishment of spiritual independence, was completed without bloodshed under Elizabeth’s auspices, and Elizabeth may have the glory of the work.

“In fighting out her long quarrel with Spain and building her church system out of the broken masonry of popery, her concluding years passed away. The great men who had upheld the throne in the days of her peril dropped one by one into the grave. Walsingham died soon after the defeat of the Armada, ruined in fortune and weary of his ungrateful service. Hunsdon, Knollys, Burleigh, Drake, followed at brief intervals, and their mistress was left by herself, standing as it seemed on the pinnacle of earthly glory, yet in all the loneliness of greatness, and unable to enjoy the honors which Burleigh’s policy had won for her. The first place among the Protestant powers, which had been so often offered her and so often refused, has been forced upon her in spite of herself. She was head of the name, but it gave her no pleasure. She was the last of her race; no Tudor would sit again on the English throne. Her own sad prophecy was fulfilled, and she lived to see those whom she most trusted turning their eyes to the rising sun.

“Old age was coming upon her, bringing with it perhaps a consciousness of failing faculties; and solitary in the midst of splendor, and friendless among the circle of adorers, who swore they lived but in her presence, she grew weary of a life which had ceased to interest her. Sickening of a vague disease, she sought no help from medicine, and finally refused to take food. She could not rest in her bed, but sat silent on cushions, staring into vacancy with fixed and stony eyes, and so at last she died.

“All questions connected with the virgin queen should be rather studied in her actions than in the opinion of the historian who relates them. Opinions are but forms of cloud created by the prevailing currents of the moral air. Actions and words are carved upon eternity.”

CATHERINE DE’ MEDICI.
A.D. 1519-1589.

“What mighty ills have not been done by woman?

Who was’t betrayed the Capitol? A woman!

Who lost Mark Antony the world? A woman!

Who was the cause of a long ten years’ war,

And laid at last old Troy in ashes? Woman!

Destructive,—deceitful woman!”—Otway.

“Woman may err, woman may give her mind

To evil thoughts, and lose her pure estate;

But for one woman who affronts her kind

By wicked passions and remorseless hate,

A thousand make amends in age and youth,

By heavenly pity, by sweet sympathy,

By patient kindness, by enduring truth,

By love, supremest in adversity.”—Charles Mackay.

“WOE to thee, O country, that hast a child for king!” exclaimed the Venetian ambassador in France, in 1560, when Charles IX., a child ten years old, ascended the throne; but greater woe to that country because the mother of that child, who held the power of government, as queen-regent, was one of the greatest monsters of crime in the annals of history, and forced that child to become a very fiend of infamy and cruelty.

CATHERINE DE’ MEDICI

Painting by François Clouet,
Chantilly.

Catherine de’ Medici was a woman devoid of every womanly instinct, every womanly virtue, every womanly attribute. She was the very incarnation of the terrible Medusa, petrifying all noble impulses, destroying all virtuous aspirations, killing every kindly feeling in the hearts of those around her.

She had been taught the doctrines of Machiavelli, whose ideal of a prince was one who should work by force, fraud, cruelty, and dissimulation to gain his desired ends; but even these dangerous theories of that crafty, though brilliant-minded Florentine, were far out-stripped in unprincipled chicanery by his ambitious follower, Catherine de Medici; so that the term Machiavellian is far too weak a word to apply to her diabolical villanies.

France ran red with blood. The terrible tocsin at midnight tolled forth the death-doom of one hundred thousand lives. The wild shrieks of the dying freighted the air of France with heart-curdling wailings from centre to circumference. French soil was deluged with the blood of her people. The blasphemous curses of the fiendish murderers polluted the very air of heaven, until it seemed as though the furies of hell were let loose upon this realm, to wreck upon the helpless people the infernal hate of the arch-demon himself.

Who was the diabolical instigator of this atrocious work? Alas! a woman! and that woman Catherine de’ Medici.

The innocent soul of a child, naturally moved by good impulses, was tutored in every vice of which human nature is capable. His childish lips were taught to pronounce the most terrible blasphemies, his kind heart was mocked and sneered at, and tempted with every ensnaring device of vile and polluting pleasures offered by the most dissolute and alluring companions, until no wickedness seemed too great to be undertaken, no degrading diversion too low to be indulged in. His constitution was purposely weakened, his mind purposely dwarfed and debased, that his life might be short, and that his will might be broken; that another’s ambitious power might be increased even though it cost the death of body and soul of the helpless victim. Who was this fiend incarnate, who could thus toy with a human soul, hourly dragging it nearer and nearer the yawning jaws of the bottomless pit of perdition? That one was a woman, the mother of her quivering victim; this malevolent Gorgon was Catherine de’ Medici.

Even the horrors of the Inquisition in Spain pale before the horrors of the massacre of St. Bartholomew. Even the bloody “Demon of the South,” as Philip II. was called, seems not such a revolting spectacle of depraved humanity as Catherine de’ Medici; for Philip, at least, fanatically imagined he was aiding the cause of religion, as he believed the infamous Inquisition to be a righteous avenger in behalf of the Catholic Church; whereas Catherine de’ Medici had no belief, no religion, cared neither for Catholics nor Protestants, neither for the Romish Church nor for the Reformed Faith.

She flattered each by turns as it best suited her nefarious schemes; she was actuated by no motive beyond her personal ambition of holding the reins of power; she cared not who or what was sacrificed, whether the life and soul of her own child, or whether the result was the downfall of every religious belief, the blood of her subjects, the ruin of her provinces, and the desolation of the homes of her people.

Not even fanaticism can be offered as a poor excuse for her crimes; her infamous deeds can be cloaked by no paltry plea of religious fervor. Her crimes were instigated by her own diabolical soul, a willing ally of the Prince of Darkness; and were it not for the strong menial abilities she manifested, one would imagine her some grotesque monster of an animal. But her crafty schemes betokened keen intellectual powers, and made her seem some malignant demon in human shape sent forth from the lowest depths of the Inferno to lure men and women to destruction.

Catherine de’ Medici was a daughter of Lorenzo de’ Medici, that ruler of Florence for whom Machiavelli wrote the “Prince.” Having lost both her parents in early childhood, Catherine was sent to a convent to be educated. Her uncle, Pope Clement VII., arranged with Francis I. of France a marriage between Catherine and the Duke of Orleans, afterwards Henry II. of France. This marriage was celebrated in 1533, when Catherine was fourteen years of age.

During the reign of Francis, Catherine exercised no influence in France. She was a thick-set, plain, unprepossessing girl; and being so young, and a foreigner, and a native of a state having no great weight in the world of politics, she was thrown entirely into the shade by more important and attractive personages, having not yet given any proof of her after great but iniquitous ability.

The court life at the time of Francis I. was beginning to assume some of the brilliancy and splendor for which it became so famous in the reign of le Grand Monarque. The fall of Florence and the expulsion of the French from Italy brought many Italians into France. Among these were men of letters, poets, musicians, sculptors, painters, and architects. Italian was generally understood at court, and became a frequent medium of conversation. Many Italian words were thus introduced into French phrases, and the French tongue became thereby materially changed and softened in its pronunciation.

It was at this time that so many old feudal fortresses were torn down to give place to the châteaux of the Renaissance. The king lived familiarly with artists, men of letters and celebrities, and patronized all who had made a name in art or literature.

Fontainebleau, which was originally a hunting-seat of Saint Louis IX., began to rise into a stately palace under the direction of Sebastian Serlio and Rosso, a Florentine. This Italian artist, Rosso, or Battista di Jacopo, was named by King Francis, “chief and superintendent over all the buildings, paintings, and other decorations of the palace,” with a large salary, for Rosso lived like en grand seigneur. As a painter his industry was great, and he displayed much ability in his designs for the decoration of the Galerie de François I., which he constructed over the lower court. During the reign of Louis Philippe some of Rosso’s paintings were discovered under a coating of whitewash, and were restored by that king’s order.

But the chef-d’œuvre of the Renaissance was the Château de Chambord, which, though it was not half completed at the time of the visit of the Emperor Charles V., so greatly excited his wonder and admiration.

One of the marvels of this château was “its double spiral staircase of two hundred and eighty-six steps, rising in the centre of the edifice from its basement to its highest point,—the lantern, crowned by an enormous fleur-de-lys. It was a sort of puzzle. Eight persons could walk abreast up or down it, the ascending and descending parties never meeting, yet seeing each other.”

FRANCIS I.

From a painting by Titian in the Louvre.

The Emperor Charles was also amazed at this time by the gorgeousness and extravagance in dress displayed by the bourgeoisie. “At Poitiers he was received by near five hundred gentlemen, richly attired, and two thousand of the citizens in robes of velvet and satin, bordered with gold and silver lace. From Orleans a still more imposing cavalcade rode out to meet him. The bourgeoisie of this royal city had certain privileges which, like the citizens of Paris, they shared with the nobility. Ninety-two of these privileged merchants of the upper bourgeoisie accompanied the governor and persons of distinction to greet the emperor. All of them were mounted on excellent chargers, and all wore coats or casaques of black velvet, and doublets or vests of white satin fastened with gold buttons. Their boots were of white morocco, slashed, and their spurs either silver-gilt or gold. Their caps or toques were also of velvet, elaborately ornamented with gold embroider and precious stones.”

Orleans was then considered a large, handsome town. Charles V. said it was the finest city he saw in France. “Where, then,” he was asked, “does your majesty place Paris?”

“Oh, Paris,” he replied, “is no city, but rather a little world.”

As Francis I. was ruled by his favorite, the Duchesse d’ Étampes, his wife, Queen Eleanor, was simply a dazzling ornament in his court, where she always appeared in the splendor of the most gorgeous attire, solacing herself with the only privilege left to her, of displaying her rightful rank and prestige. “Near her, as if to seek the protection which her position afforded, if not her influence,—for of that she had none,—the quiet, subtle girl-wife of the youthful Prince Henry was always to be found. Of all that passed around her nothing escaped her vigilant, restless eyes. She was inwardly taking notes to serve for her guidance in the future,—resigned to live, and learn, and bide her time, fully assured—for was it not written in the stars?—that, as time rolled on, her turn would come to sway the destinies of the kingdom.

“No attentions did Catherine de’ Medici receive or look for from her boy-husband. He was a fluttering captive in the chains of first love, and the most brilliant beauty of the court, the famed Diana de Poitiers, was the lady of his heart, at the shrine of whose loveliness he bowed the knee. Prince Henry was then seventeen, and the lady had numbered thirty-seven summers. As to winters, they glided o’er her smooth, fair brow, leaving no trace of their passage, or any snowy signs of age on her luxuriant raven hair. Her husband, the Comte de Dreux-Brezé, died in 1531, and she erected a magnificent monument to his memory, and ever after wore the widow’s dress. Nature had made her beautiful forever, and beautiful she remained, unaided by art, we are told, until the end of her threescore years and nine.

“At this early period of Henry’s attachment to her, Diana derived from it no influence at court. The king disliked his second son, whose sentimental worship of an ‘aged siren,’ as envious ladies were pleased to call her, was a subject of jest among his companions, while Diana professed for the royal youth a tender but motherly affection; placid Catherine looking on unmoved.”

But this placid Catherine would not always sheathe her sharp stiletto of Italian craftiness, and then its gleaming point would pierce the quivering hearts of her victims with merciless cruelty.

During the reign of her husband, Henry II., Catherine lived a quiet, unobtrusive life, having little or no influence over the king, who was completely under the fascinating sway of the beautiful widow, Diana of Poitiers, who, possessing keen insight and much quick wit, was in reality the sovereign of France during the reign of Henry II.

Catherine de’ Medici manifested no outward signs of her discomfiture in thus having her place and power usurped by her husband’s fair favorite, but she was silently waiting her turn, and carefully observing the various moves in the political game then being played in Europe. She affected not only tolerance, but even friendship towards Diana; but the crafty Italian was meanwhile watching with tiger-cunning the right moment to spring forth from her hidden lair and seize upon her coveted prize, the imperial power of the throne; this was her only ambition. With wise insight she realized the hopelessness of endeavoring to free her husband from the ensnaring power of Diana, and so she artfully made his favorite her friend, and seemingly acquiesced in the ascendency of her rival.

On the 31st of March, 1547, Francis I. died, and in the following July, Henry II. was crowned, his elder brother having died some time before. On this occasion Diana and Catherine sat together under a “canopied tribune,” beholding the handsome prince in his royal robes, as he knelt before the archbishop and received from his hands the imperial crown.

But another character connected with this court demands attention. Jeanne d’Albret, the daughter of Queen Margaret of Navarre, was brought up at the Court of Francis I. and educated in the Romish faith. But her mother had adopted the principles of the Reformation, and Jeanne d’Albret afterwards became the most ardent defender of the Protestants at a time when such defence required the bravest heart and most unflinching courage.

Soon after the coronation of Henry II. the marriage of Jeanne d’Albret, heiress of the kingdom of Navarre, was celebrated in the Château de Moulins. The bridegroom was Antoine de Bourbon, Duc de Vendôme and first prince of the blood after the sons of Henry II. King Henry and his brilliant court repaired to Moulins to celebrate these nuptials. Upon this occasion Catherine de’ Medici was attired with gorgeous splendor. She was very fond of dress, and with the richly-robed Italian ladies in her suite presented a magnificent spectacle. Amidst all the brilliant costumes, one lady was distinguished by her widow’s garb. But Madame Diana well understood her charms, and in her costly robe of white and black velvet, with veil of silver tissue and coiffe of netted velvet, bordered with pearls, she became at once distingué and enchanting; and though Catherine de’ Medici might flash in gorgeous colors and royal jewels, her ugly, heavy features and ungraceful form only appeared more unattractive by the side of her beautiful rival. King Henry, who always wore black and white in compliment to Diana, was attired on this occasion “in a pourpoint, or vest of black velvet, slashed with white satin, with short skirts or basques, and a cloak of the same material, embroidered in broad stripes of gold. Trunk-hose of white silk, very large, and rounded with horse-hair or wool, a band of gold braiding attaching them to the long white silk stockings, and white silk shoes with black rosettes. A black velvet toque, with a white plume of two or three feathers placed on the right side, and bordered with four rows of black and white pearls. His cravat was of fine lace, and an escarcelle or pocket was fastened on his right side by gold chains to an embroidered waist-belt.”

“The princes and other persons of distinction were similarly dressed, the bridegroom wearing blue and white velvet and satin, many jewels in his plumed hat, many rings on his fingers, a jewelled pouch at his side, and a massive gold chain passing twice round his neck.”

But a lovely vision was presented by the bride of nineteen, Jeanne d’Albret, as she stood at the altar of the chapel of Moulins. “She was arrayed in white and silver satin brocade, her hair flowing loosely over her shoulders, but confined at the forehead by a circlet of pearls with diamond clasp, as was usual at that time for brides of high degree. Her long, heavy train, embroidered in silver and seed-pearls, was borne by four young pages in costumes of blue velvet and silver, white satin shoes with blue rosettes, and blue velvet toques with small white plumes. The great width of the deeply pendent sleeves (another distinguishing mark of the toilettes of ladies of rank, women of inferior station being permitted far less latitude in this respect) heavily embroidered to match the train, seemed from their weight almost to need the services of two more pages to support them. A stomacher of pearls and diamonds, a cordelière of the same, silver-embroidered satin shoes, and veil of Italian silver tissue falling very low on the back of the dress, completed this artistic and becoming bridal costume.”

But a sketch of Catherine de’ Medici has little to do with such fascinating scenes. With the death of her husband, King Henry, began the terrible spectacles of bloodshed and vice and cruelties which have made her name a synonyme of revolting wickedness. Not that Henry II. was not also cruel and guilty of many crimes, for he even celebrated his first appearance in Paris after his coronation by the public burning on the Place de Grève of half a dozen heretics; and he had established a special chamber in the Parliament called significantly the “Chambre Ardente”; and he would sit at the window of the Hôtel-de-la-Roche-Pot, which commanded a full view of the place of execution in the Rue Saint-Antoine, and watch the writhings of the burning heretics; but notwithstanding these atrocious instances, the cruelties of Catherine de’ Medici were on so much larger scale, and planned with such diabolical butchery, that in contrast Henry II. seems almost humane.

The reign of Francis I. had left France in a mournful condition. The peace of Crespy had hurt the feelings both of royalty and of the nation. It had left England in possession of Calais and Boulogne, and confirmed the ascendency of Charles V. in Germany, Italy, and Spain on the French frontiers. But Charles V. met his match as a general, in the brave defender of Metz, the valiant Duke of Guise, who commanded Henry II.’s forces at that memorable siege. This successful defence against the besieging army of the Emperor Charles V. gave Guise vast renown, and weakened materially the power of Charles.

France had been for nearly six years free from actual war with the emperor, when the German princes sought the aid of Henry II. in an alliance against Charles V., who was threatening to become as despotic in Germany as he was in Spain. The German princes had proposed to give Henry II. possession of the three cities, Metz, Toul, and Verdun, or at least allow him to conquer them, as these cities were not Germanic in language. As a further inducement to the French king to make an alliance with them, they promised to aid him in endeavoring to recover from Charles, Henry’s heritage of Milan. This had been the constant ambition of Francis I., to obtain possession of this ancestral heritage. Henry accordingly entered into negotiations with the German Princes; and to the declaration of war of Maurice of Saxony against the Emperor Charles, was appended a manifesto from the king of France. “Therein Henry announced himself the ‘Defender of the liberties of Germany, and protector of her captive princes,’ further stating, ‘that broken-hearted (le cœur navré) at the condition of Germany, he could not refuse to aid her, but had determined to do so to the utmost of his power and ability, even to personally engaging in this war, undertaken for liberty, and not for his personal benefit.’ This document, written in French, was headed by the representation of a cap between two poniards, and around it the inscription, ‘The emblem of liberty.’ It is said to have been copied from some ancient coins, and to have been appropriated as the symbol of freedom by Cæsar’s assassins. Thus singularly was brought to light by a king of the French Renaissance that terrible cap of liberty, before which the ancient crown of France was one day destined to fall.”

Henry II., thereupon leaving Catherine de’ Medici as regent in France, much to her profound surprise at such unusual attention from her indifferent husband,—who took good care, however, to tie her hands by such restrictions that she was regent only in name, while Diana held the real power,—departed with his army, and with ease took possession of the cities of Metz, Toul, and Verdun.

It was in endeavoring to reconquer Metz that Charles V. met his disastrous repulse in the brave defence of the Duke of Guise, who was then governor of Metz.

After the fatigues and horrors of war, the French court turned again to balls and tournaments, and the building of châteaux, and the patronage of art. It was at this time that Bernard Palissy was much patronized by the fair Diana, whom Henry had made Duchesse de Valentinois, presenting her with the Château de Chenonceaux, which seemed to be the only attention from the king which caused Catherine de’ Medici to vow vengeance, as she had desired to possess the château herself.

Notwithstanding desolating wars, the French court of Henry II. far outshone that of Francis I. in extravagance of dress and living.

“Never had any queen of France, except, perhaps, Queen Eleanor, and her court been arrayed in brocades so costly, or bedecked with gems more precious than Catherine de’ Medici and her ladies, though the crown jewels were worn by Madame Diana. At least they were transferred to her when the reign of Madame d’Etampes ended. Diana wore pearls only, black and white, which harmonized with her mourning dress. She may, however, have sometimes condescended to wear the crown diamonds, though they were not of great value.

“Never had the chefs-d’œuvre of Italian cookery been served at any state banquets on gold and silver plate in greater profusion or of more artistic workmanship, or the table ornamented with such magnificent productions of the glass manufactories of Venice. Carriages sufficiently capacious, luxuriously furnished, and ornamented with thousands of gilt nails, now took the place of the litter for travelling,—the gentlemen, when not aged or gouty, still preferring horses.”

Jeromio Lippomano, writing to the senate, says:—

“The novelties or changes in the fashion of dress succeed each other from day to day, I might almost say from hour to hour. The French spend without measure on their wardrobes and their table. As the profession of the French noble is that of arms, he wears a short coat. But it would be difficult to send you a model, so often is it varied in color and form. To-day the brim of his hat will extend beyond his shoulders; to-morrow his hat or cap will scarce cover the top of his head. His mantle sometimes reaches to his ankles; at others no lower than his loins. His shoes are either in the Greek fashion, or that of Savoy,—so wide and so high that they reach the middle of the leg, or so short and so narrow that they resemble tubes. If the form of the garments is frequently changed, no less so is the ridiculous manner of wearing them, as buttoning one sleeve and leaving the other open. When on horseback, these young warriors carry the sword in the hand, and gallop through the city as if in pursuit of an enemy, after the manner of the Polish cavaliers.”

“Twenty-five to thirty dresses of different form, and all elaborately embroidered, with an ample stock of fine laces, feathers, and jewels, scarcely sufficed to make a decent appearance at this luxurious and extravagant court. The ladies cared not to bestow their smiles on a cavalier who proclaimed his poverty by the scantiness of his wardrobe.” So great was the cost of living at the court that the courtiers took turns of three months each in the court service, and then retired to their châteaux, that they might retrench in their expenses, and so save enough money to again make a brilliant appearance when attendance at court was imposed upon them.

Meanwhile Charles V. had retired to a monastery and abdicated in favor of his son, Philip II. of Spain. Philip had married Mary Tudor of England. Mary Stuart of Scotland, a niece of the powerful House of Guise, had been married to Francis, the Dauphin of France. Philip II. had continued his father’s hostility to France, and the desperate battle of Saint Quentin had not only defeated the French, but had placed Montmorency, King Henry’s favorite “good gossip,” a prisoner in the hands of Philip.

It was at this time that Catherine de’ Medici first displayed her political tact and courage. Henry had gone to Compiègne, to raise troops, when the news reached Paris of the capture of Saint Quentin. A great panic ensued. Many fled from the city in fear, thinking the enemy were approaching.

Catherine de’ Medici went to the parliament in full state, accompanied by the cardinals, princes, and princesses, and made such a stirring appeal to the authorities, showing them the urgent necessity for an immediate levy of troops, that parliament granted her 100,000 crowns for that purpose.

From that day the position of Catherine de’ Medici was changed. King Henry returning and learning of her prudent measures, for the first time showed her some attention, and thenceforward she assumed her place in the court. The Duke of Guise was now put at the head of an army by Henry, and Calais was speedily captured, to the surprise and chagrin of Queen Mary of England and her husband Philip II. of Spain.

But Philip’s army was now required elsewhere. The inquisition gave him much work in Spain. His wife Mary had died, and Elizabeth had ascended the English throne. As she would not listen to his suit, he turned his eyes towards France, and as Henry II. also desired peace, that his “good gossip” might be liberated, the peace of Cateau-Cambrésis was concluded, and Philip II. of Spain married for his third wife Elizabeth, the daughter of Henry II. and Catherine de’ Medici, then in her thirteenth year. At the marriage tournament, the queens of France, Spain, and Scotland were seated in the royal pavilion. In another, no less gorgeous, sat Diana, still fair and fascinating, though surrounded by daughters and granddaughters.

King Henry still wore Diana’s colors in the mock combats. The king then invited Montgomery to break a lance with him; Montgomery endeavored to excuse himself, but Henry insisted. It was a fatal encounter. The two combatants coming violently together, broke their lances, and that of Montgomery pierced King Henry’s eye. He was taken wounded to his palace, but the wound was mortal. In eleven days Henry II. was dead.

The young prince ascended the throne as Francis II.; but in less than a year he died, and his brother Charles was proclaimed king as Charles IX. Over Francis II., Catherine de’ Medici did not have much power, for he was absorbed in his love for his beautiful young wife, Mary, Queen of Scots. But with the ascension of Charles, then ten years old, Catherine de’ Medici as regent held in her hands the reins of government, and soon unmasked her true character.

At the close of the sixteenth century all Europe was agitated by the controversy between the Catholics and Protestants. The writings of Luther and Calvin and other reformers had aroused the Christian world. Scotland and England had established the reformed faith, and in France the Protestant Huguenots had become quite numerous. Their leaders were the Prince of Condé, Admiral Coligni, and the House of Navarre. They were opposed by the crown and many of the French nobles, the foremost being the powerful House of Guise.

At this time Jeanne d’Albret comes prominently to the front. This Jeanne d’Albret, now queen of Navarre, married to a husband pitiably weak and vacillating, utterly incapable of comprehending her nobility of soul, was forced to take into her own hands the reins of government. Surrounded by enemies on every side, she made no mistakes in political measures, sustained her ancestral rights, battled for the cause of Protestantism, and was at this time its most powerful protector. Catherine de’ Medici worshipped no deity but ambition. Jeanne d’Albret was ready to sacrifice her throne and her life in the support of the glorious cause of the Reformation.

Catherine espoused the cause of the Catholics because she deemed them the stronger party, but she treacherously endeavored to win to her side the young Prince Henry, the son of Jeanne d’Albret, who had been taken to Catherine’s court by his father, who was a Catholic. After the death of her husband, Antoine de Bourbon, Jeanne succeeded in bringing her son back to Navarre, where his mother watched his character carefully, endeavoring to uproot the evil tendencies which had been planted by the corruption at the court of Catherine de’ Medici.

The first of the religious wars during the reign of Charles IX. began in 1562. During this campaign the Duke of Guise, who was the chief leader in the Catholic party, was waylaid and killed by a young Protestant noble, who had been persecuted, and therefore believed he was justified in assassinating the leader of the Catholics, who was considered the most formidable foe of the reformed religion.

“France was the arena of woe upon which the Catholics and Protestants of Europe hurled themselves against each other. Catherine, breathing vengeance, headed the Catholic army. Jeanne, calm yet inflexible, was recognized as the head of the Protestant leaders.”

There were frequent skirmishes and battles. Many thousand Protestants had perished. The Catholics now waxing stronger, prepared for a decisive engagement. The two forces met upon the field of Jarnac, in 1568. In this dreadful contest the Protestants were defeated, and their brave leader, Prince of Condé, was slain.

But at this critical moment, the heroic courage of Jeanne d’Albret was undaunted. Presenting herself before the terror-stricken Huguenots, she personally encouraged the panic-stricken soldiers. This masterly address of a woman to the soldiers of the Reformation has something truly Napoleonic in its clear ringing cadences, and something vastly grander than Napoleon’s aim, for it was inspired by a desire to uphold and advance God’s kingdom, rather than an ambitious thirst for increased power. Whatever we may think of upholding any cause by the use of the sword, we must admire these soul-stirring words of this great and dauntless woman.

“Soldiers, you weep! But does the memory of Condé demand nothing more than tears? Will you be satisfied with profitless regrets? No! Let us unite and summon back our courage to defend a cause which can never perish. Does despair overpower you? Despair! that shameful failing of weak natures! Can it be known to you, noble warriors and Christian men? When I, the queen, hope still, is it for you to fear? Because Condé is dead, is all therefore lost? Does our cause cease to be just and holy? No! God, who placed arms in his hand for our defence, and who has already rescued you from perils innumerable, has raised us up brothers in arms worthy to succeed him, and to fight for the cause of our country and the truth!... To these brave warriors I add my son; make proof of his valor. Soldiers, I offer you everything in my power to bestow,—my dominions, my treasures, my life, and that which is dearer to me than all—my children! I make here solemn oath before you all, and you know me too well to doubt my word; I swear to defend to my last sigh the holy cause which now unites us, which is that of honor and of truth.”

Around this brave queen of Navarre the Protestants rallied their forces anew. Her son, Prince Henry, pledged himself to consecrate all his energies to the defence of the Reformation. Jeanne d’Albret presented a gold medal to each of the chiefs of the army, with her own name, together with that of her son, upon one side, while on the other were inscribed the words, “Certain peace, complete victory, or honorable death.” The heroic queen became almost an object of adoration in the enthusiastic hearts of her soldiers.

Catherine de’ Medici, noting the effect of the presence of the queen of Navarre upon the Protestant troops, also visited her army; and though she lavished presents and harangued the soldiers, none admired and all secretly despised her, even though they courted her through fear.

Again the opposing forces met upon the field of battle. The Protestants were defeated with awful carnage. Coligni, who led the soldiers of the Reformation, was severely wounded, and carried off the field as dying, having received a bullet wound in the jaw. The Catholics were jubilant, but much to their surprise, in a few weeks Coligni, whom they supposed to be dead, headed another force against them. The brave queen of Navarre had rallied a third army, and this time the tide turned in favor of the reformers. Prince Henry of Navarre himself took part in this battle, which was so greatly to the advantage of the Protestants that Catherine offered them peace, which was gladly accepted. This perfidious peace on Catherine’s side “was but the first act in the awful tragedy of St. Bartholomew.”

And now Catherine de’ Medici entered upon the second act of this bloody drama. Death and a marriage were to be her weapons in this scene. With flattering caresses she lavished attentions upon the young prince of Navarre, inviting him to her court, where she and her son Charles, whom by this time she had so corrupted in mind and morals that he was a submissive dupe in her Mephistophelian plans, concocted their criminal schemes to entrap him. About this time Charles was married to Elizabeth, daughter of the Emperor Maximilian II. of Austria; and Catherine improved the opportunity of the nuptial festivities to lure Prince Henry and Jeanne d’Albret into her power. Having secured this marriage for Charles, Catherine now declared that Henry must be her son, and offered him the hand of her daughter Marguerite. This princess was beautiful, but was as devoid of principle as her unrighteous mother.

Jeanne d’Albret was much opposed to this match, but state considerations prevailed at last to gain her consent. It was urged upon her that this marriage would protect the Protestants from persecution, and save France from further bloodshed. Thus did the malevolent but cunning Catherine lure Jeanne to her doom, and entangle Henry in the strong net of her evil designs, which should so long imprison him.

Even the Admiral Coligni was deceived by the friendly protestations of Catherine de’ Medici, and her son, Charles IX., who by this time had become almost evil enough in nature to suit the satanic desires of his atrocious mother.

Though Catherine and Charles IX. were plotting the entire destruction of the Protestants, using this marriage but as a cloak to cover their sinister plans, Charles IX. with consummate perjury declared:—

“I give my sister in marriage, not only to the prince of Navarre, but, as it were, to the whole Protestant party. This will be the strongest and closest bond for the maintenance of peace between my subjects, and a sure evidence of my good-will towards the Protestants.”

At this very time he and his mother had planned to lure the leaders of the Protestants to Paris as their guests for the celebration of the wedding festivities; when at the dire signal they were to be butchered in cold blood. After receiving the queen of Navarre with every manifestation of love, when the French king quite overacted his part, calling Jeanne d’Albret, “his great aunt, his all, his best beloved,” the following dialogue is said to have occurred between Catherine and Charles, after the queen of Navarre had retired.

“Well, mother,” said Charles laughing, “what do you think of it? Do I play my little part well?”

“Yes,” replied Catherine, “well; but it is of no use unless it continues.”

“Allow me to go on,” said this debased king, “and you will see that I shall ensnare them.”

And ensnare them they did truly. Hardly had the queen of Navarre entered the sumptuous apartments provided for her in the court of Catherine, ere she was seized with a violent fever which continued nine days, when she died.

Henry, her son, had not yet arrived in Paris, but was travelling there more slowly with his retinue. Catherine exhibited the most ostentatious demonstrations of grief. Charles IX. uttered the loudest lamentations, and displayed the most poignant sorrow. Notwithstanding these efforts to allay suspicions, the report spread through France and Europe that the queen of Navarre had been perfidiously poisoned by Catherine de’ Medici. The Protestant writers assert that Jeanne d’Albret fell a victim to poison, communicated by a pair of perfumed gloves. The Catholics as firmly declare that she died from natural causes. The truth cannot be ascertained.

But after events make the supposition very strong that Jeanne d’Albret was the first victim in the massacre of St. Bartholomew. Her death necessarily delayed the marriage for a short time, but at length the nuptial day arrived. The Admiral Coligni was with other prominent Protestants lured to Paris. When friends urged him to remain at home and not trust the protestations of the perfidious queen, Coligni, who was much attached to Henry, now the king of Navarre, replied:—

“I confide in the sacred word of his majesty.”

But poor Henry was as great a dupe as any, and he was completely deceived by the cunning wiles of this diabolical mother and son.

Protestants and Catholics of the highest rank, from all parts of Europe, gathered in Paris to celebrate this marriage, which was looked upon as a great stroke of policy for the furtherance of peace between the conflicting parties. But the haughty spirit of the Princess Margaret had well-nigh defeated the nefarious schemes of her unprincipled mother and brother. Piqued that Henry of Navarre should show so little admiration for his betrothed, whom he married only for state reasons, she vowed vengeance, and took a peculiar time to display her unconquerable pride. In the midst of the imposing nuptial ceremony, when the officiating bishop asked her if she willingly received Henry of Bourbon for her husband, she pouted coquettishly, threw back her proud head in defiance, and remained silent. Again the question was repeated; but not all the powers of Europe could break her will. Her brother, Charles IX., knowing well his sister’s obstinacy, relieved this embarrassing situation by coolly walking up behind the haughty beauty, and placing his hand upon the back of her head, compelled an involuntary nod. The confused bishop quickly took the hint, and smilingly proceeded with the ceremony. And thus this fatal marriage was completed.

The Pope, not aware of the treachery which had been planned, was aghast at such friendly relations between the Catholics and the hated Protestants, and he sent a legate to remonstrate with the French king. As the moment had not arrived to reveal the hellish plot, Charles replied: “I do wish that I could tell you all; but you and the Pope shall soon know how beneficial this marriage shall prove to the interests of religion. Take my word for it, in a little time the holy father shall have to praise my designs, my piety, and my zeal in behalf of the faith.”

Thus did Catherine de’ Medici and Charles dare to mask their infernal schemes under the sacred name of religion. But the end was not yet. Admiral Coligni was the next victim. As he was passing through the streets of Paris, a musket was discharged from the window of a house, and two balls struck Coligni, one entering his left arm and the other cutting off a finger of his right hand. The assassin escaped. The wounded admiral was conveyed to his apartments, and Henry of Navarre and his Protestant friends gathered around the suffering Coligni. Again Catherine and Charles declared their utter abhorrence of the deed, and were even blasphemous in their noisy protestations of sorrow.

Meanwhile this guilty pair thus consulted together. Some circumstances seem to indicate that Charles was not a party to the attempt on the life of the admiral; but Catherine is said to have thus moved him to enter into her brutal plots:—

“Notwithstanding all your protestations, the deed will certainly be laid to your charge. Civil war will be again enkindled. The chiefs of the Protestants are now all in Paris. You had better gain the victory at once here than incur the hazard of a new campaign.”

“Well, then,” replied Charles, petulantly, “since you approve the murder of the admiral, I am content. But let all the Huguenots also fall, that there may not be one left to reproach me.”

While the young king of Navarre was by the bedside of his wounded friend, the Admiral Coligni, recounting to him the assurances of faith and honor given by Catherine and Charles IX., these two were in secret council, debating whether this Henry, the newly-made husband of the daughter of one and the sister of the other, should be included in the dreadful doom appointed for the Protestants. It was at length decided that his life should be spared, but that he should be kept in a kind of imprisonment, and that he should be forced to abjure his Protestant faith.

The young Duke of Guise was to take the lead of this terrible carnage. As he believed that Coligni was a party to the murder of his father, some years before, he determined that he should be the first victim of this awful night. He had issued secret orders for all the Catholics “to wear a white cross on the hat, and to bind a piece of white cloth around the arm,” that they might be thus distinguished in the darkness of the night. The alarm-bell in the tower of the Palace of Justice was to toll the dire signal for the indiscriminate massacre of the Protestants. The conspiracy extended throughout the provinces of France. Men, women, and children were to be cut down without mercy.

“The storm was to burst at the same moment upon the unsuspecting victims in every city and village of the kingdom. Beacon-fires, with their lurid midnight glare, were to flash the tidings from mountain to mountain. The peal of alarm was to ring along from steeple to steeple, from city to hamlet, from valley to hillside, till the whole Catholic population should be aroused to obliterate every vestige of Protestantism from the land.”

While Catherine and Charles were arranging every detail of this monstrous crime, they lavished the warmest and most flattering attention upon the Protestant generals and nobles, whom they had lured within their insidious power. The very day before that dreadful night Charles entertained many of the most illustrious of the doomed guests at a sumptuous feast in the Louvre, and detained them in the palace all night by the most courteous and pressing invitations to accept his hospitality.

Henry of Navarre had his suspicions aroused; but though he was well aware of the utter depravity of Catherine and Charles, he knew not where the blow would fall. The young bride of Henry had not been informed of this vile plot, and when about to retire to her apartments in the palace, her sister Claude, who knew of the coming danger, tried to detain her lest she might suffer harm. Catherine sternly rebuked her daughter, and bade her be silent. But Claude still held Margaret by the arm, and said to Catherine, “It is a shame to send her to be sacrificed, for if anything is discovered, they (meaning the Catholics) will be sure to avenge themselves upon her.” But the fiend-like Catherine, preferring that her own child should risk danger and perhaps death, rather than that her hellish work should be thwarted, replied:—

“No harm will befall the queen of Navarre, and it is my pleasure that she retire to her own apartments, lest her absence should create suspicion.” Henry, Prince of Joinville, who now held the title of the Duke of Guise, was to be the chief leader of this infernal massacre.

He had ordered the tocsin, the signal for the massacre, to be tolled at two o’clock in the morning. Meanwhile Catherine and Charles watched in one of the apartments of the Louvre for the fatal knell. Charles was wildly excited. And at last, his mother fearing that his determination to carry out this night’s hellish work was wavering, she urged him to send a servant at once to sound the alarm. Charles hesitated, and a cold sweat covered his forehead. For with all his depravity he had still remaining a slight spark of humanity; but the fiend incarnate, his shameful mother, tauntingly exclaimed: “Are you a coward?” Whereupon the tortured king cried, “Well, then begin.”

And so upon the early morning air of a calm Sabbath, Aug. 24, 1572, the direful tocsin pealed forth its death-doom; and at this signal armed men rushed forth into the streets shouting, “Vive Dieu et le roi!”

The awful carnage which followed is known in history as the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, because it occurred upon the anniversary of a festival in honor of St. Bartholomew, which had long been celebrated.

As the solemn dirge from the steeple rang out upon the air, the king stood at the window of the palace trembling in every limb, but the demoniacal Catherine was aroused to a frenzy of delight. The first victim was the wounded Coligni. The Duke of Guise with three hundred soldiers hastened to the lodgings of the admiral, and the gates were forced and the assassins entered the sick man’s chamber. Helpless, and abandoned by his frightened servants, he was brutally butchered, and his bleeding body was thrown out of the window at the command of the Duke of Guise, who desired to look upon his dead enemy. Giving the mangled corpse a kick in the face, the duke exclaimed: “Courage, comrades, we have happily begun. Let us now go for others. The king commands it.”

Sixteen years from that time the Duke of Guise was himself assassinated, and received a kick in the face from Henry III., the brother of Charles IX., in whose service he was performing these diabolical deeds.

The streets everywhere resounded with the cries of “Kill! kill!”

At the commencement of the carnage, the queen of Navarre was awakened by a cry at her door: “Navarre! Navarre!” Supposing it was her husband, she ordered her attendants to open the door, whereupon a bleeding Huguenot rushed to her bedside and clasped the queen’s arm, begging for his life. He was followed by Catholic soldiers; but at the entreaty of the princess his life was spared. Words are weak to describe the horrors of that direful night. Gory bodies were suspended from the windows; the dead were piled in heaps in the streets; the pavements were slippery with the streaming blood; human heads were kicked as footballs along the boulevards, by the bestial fiends who had become frenzied with the sight of blood. And in the midst of this awful scene of terror, priests paraded in their sacerdotal robes, bearing aloft the crucifixes, and shouting their blasphemous hymns of rejoicing, and inciting the demoniacal murderers to fresh deeds of hellish hate. Catholic nobles and generals rode through the streets with gorgeous retinues, and called upon the people to wreak their vengeance upon the helpless Protestants. For a whole week the massacre continued, and it is estimated that one hundred thousand Protestants perished throughout the kingdom.

When the morning was well advanced, Catherine, Charles, and a profligate band of lords and ladies walked through the reeking streets, and gazed with calmness and satisfaction upon the heaps of dead piled up before the Louvre; and they even indulged in ribald jest and merriment.

The Catholic pulpits resounded with exultant harangues after this hellish work was ended, and in honor of the event a medallion was struck off, with the inscription, “La Piété a reveillé la Justice.”

From every part of Protestant Europe arose a cry of horror. Queen Elizabeth shrouded her court in mourning, and refused to give audience to the French ambassador, who exclaimed in mortification and chagrin, “I am ashamed to acknowledge myself a Frenchman.”

But Philip of Spain, the “Demon of the South,” wrote to the infamous Catherine de’ Medici:—

“These tidings are the greatest and the most glorious I could have received.”

Amid all the fiend-like deeds of men on earth, the awful Massacre of St. Bartholomew stands without a parallel.

The massacre of the priests of France during the dreadful tragedy of the Revolution was human retaliation. In the mysterious providence of God, the “iniquities of the fathers are visited upon the children.” “The 24th of August, 1572, and the 2d of September, 1792, though far apart in the records of time, are consecutive days in the government of God.”

Upon the morning of St. Bartholomew’s day a band of armed men entered the apartments of the king of Navarre, and conveyed him to the presence of the king of France. Frenzied with the scenes of blood he had already witnessed, Charles with curses and blasphemous imprecations commanded the king of Navarre, as he valued his life, to abjure the Protestant faith. Charles gave him three days to consider the question, and declared that at the end of that time if he did not obey he should be strangled. Henry yielded, and this blot upon his name was only removed when, in 1598, as Henry IV. of France, he issued his famous Edict of Nantes, which granted the Protestants full liberty of conscience.

Two years after the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, Charles IX. lay upon his death-bed. Not one hour of peace had he known since that fatal event. His nights had been filled with spectres of blood and murder, his troubled sleep had been haunted with visions of horror. His old nurse, though a Huguenot, had been saved by the king’s order, and she now watched with him in these last moments. One night, hearing the king moaning, weeping, and sighing, she went gently up to his bed and drew aside the curtains. “Ah, nurse, nurse,” cried the king, “what bloodshed and what murders! Ah, what evil counsel have I followed! O, my God! forgive me them, and have mercy upon me! What shall I do? I am lost; I see it well!” And with this hopeless wail of remorse, Charles IX. expired.

But no emotions of regret or sorrow moved the stony heart of Catherine de’ Medici. Having debased this son to her foul designs, she now spurned him in contempt for his exhibitions of remorse. When her third and favorite son, Henry, departed for Poland, of which kingdom he had been elected king, she said to him: “Go, you will not be long away.” For even before Charles was dead she was looking forward with satisfaction to that probable event, as a means of giving the throne of France to her favorite child. But when, in 1574, Henry ascended the French throne as Henry III., Catherine’s power was already weakened, and she found that her son would not be a pliant tool in her wicked hands. Not that he was aught but worthless and vicious, but their evil plans no longer harmonized. Their government for fifteen years served only to make them lose their reputation for ability. The tact of this utterly corrupted woman, and the weakness of this irresolute prince, were feeble instruments in taming the Catholics and Protestants who were now both rising in rebellion around them.

The Catholics formed a League under the brave but infamous Duke of Guise.

There were now three Henrys. Henry III., king of France, Henry, king of Navarre, and Henry, duke of Guise. The war which followed between those parties is called the War of the Three Henrys.

We cannot give details, but during these contests, which became religious wars, Henry of Guise was assassinated and the corpse was kicked in the face by Henry III., who afterwards repaired to the sick-bed of Catherine de’ Medici, and exclaimed:—

“I have made myself this morning king of France by putting to death the king of Paris,” which was the title given to the Duke of Guise.

“Take care,” replied his heartless mother, “that you do not soon find yourself king of nothing!”

And king of nothing he soon was, though Catherine de’ Medici did not live to see his downfall. In twelve days after she had thus heard, without the slightest emotion, of the assassination of the duke who had been her most zealous worker in the infamous Massacre of St. Bartholomew, this iniquitous queen,—the personification of every vice, who had lured all around her to destruction, who had been always accompanied by bands of the most profligate but beautiful women, known as her infamous Flying Squadron, who by their fascinating wiles should secure the victims her own cunning could not reach; this woman,—without a single redeeming virtue, despised by the Catholics, and hated by the Protestants, and execrated by the world,—this fiendish spirit was at length the prey of the grim conqueror, Death.

Seven months after the death of Catherine de’ Medici, Henry III. was assassinated by a monk, and Henry of Navarre was proclaimed king of France as Henry IV. Thus had all Catherine de’ Medici’s vile scheming come to naught. She and her sons died with the curses of the nation on their heads, while the son of the illustrious and faithful Huguenot, Jeanne d’Albret, sat upon the throne of France.

QUEEN ANNE.
A.D. 1664-1714.

“A partial world will listen to my lays,

While Anna reigns, and sets a female name

Unrivall’d in the glorious lists of fame.”—Young.

SOME monarchs make their reign illustrious by their own individual characters and famous deeds; other sovereigns are illustrious only because their reigns have been important epochs in the annals of history, irrespective of any merits of their own or any renowned actions or policies on their part. Upon the importance of certain political and religious aspects of the times of the “Good Queen Anne” rest all her claims to be enrolled upon the lists of fame.

One kind and generous deed, however, must be credited to her own good-natured heart. Without possessing any of the refined tastes and mental capabilities of the Stuart royal line, of which she was the last representative upon the English throne, she nevertheless inherited the generous disposition of her race, and she has made her individual name to be held in loving remembrance by her people, by the liberal fund which she relinquished from her own entitled rights, in favor of the poor clergy, whose petty livings, or rather “starvings,” had made the lives of some of the most excellent and worthy in that profession really objects of charitable commiseration. The fund set apart for the relief of poor clergymen was called “Queen Anne’s Bounty”; and surely this beautiful charity, which placed her name high upon the list of royal foundresses in the Christian church, must needs cover many of her glaring defects of mind and character beneath the shining mantle of unselfish benevolence.

Another claim which makes Queen Anne personally illustrious is the fact that she was the first monarch crowned as the sovereign of United Great Britain. Scotland had been united with England under James I., but only during the reign of Queen Anne was the union made complete; and in October, 1707, the Parliament of Great Britain sat for the first time.

“To have first thought of the Union was William III.’s last title to glory; to Queen Anne’s counsellors, in particular to Lord Somers, belongs the honor of having accomplished the work and achieved the enterprise, in spite of much violence and many obstacles. The representation of Scotland in the United Parliament of Great Britain was decided rather by its historical status as an independent kingdom than by the proportion of its population; forty-five representatives and sixteen Scottish peers were to sit in Parliament.”

Thus Queen Anne is known in history as the first sovereign of Great Britain.

Anne Stuart was the second daughter of James, Duke of York, younger brother of Charles II. of England. Her mother was Anne Hyde, the daughter of the illustrious Lord Chancellor Clarendon. The Princess Anne was born in 1664, and at the age of five years she was sent to France on account of her delicate health, and while she was in that country, in 1671, her mother died. In two years after, her father, Duke James, was married to Maria of Modena. This duchess was a kind and estimable lady; but as she was a Roman Catholic and as Duke James had also embraced that faith, Charles II. ordered that the Princess Anne and her elder sister, the Princess Mary, should be educated in the Protestant religion, as his prospective successors after their father. Their father never attempted to interfere with their Protestant education, though they were allowed to reside in the same palace with him.

In 1667 the Princess Mary was married to William, Prince of Orange; and in 1679 her father was driven into exile, and the Princess Anne and her step-mother were permitted by Charles II. to reside with the exiled Duke of York for some months in Brussels.

Previously to this time the friendship between the Princess Anne and Sarah Jennings had been formed, which in after-years exerted so important an influence upon the destinies of both lives, and even became a remarkable factor in determining the results of various portentious political changes in Europe.

The elder sister of Sarah Jennings had been a maid of honor to the first Duchess of York, the mother of Anne; and when that princess was about nine years of age, Sarah, who was then twelve years old, became the constant companion of the young princess. Even in childhood Sarah Jennings manifested many of the strong characteristics of mind and will which gave her the overpowering ascendency over the weak and good-natured Anne which she maintained with such remarkable influence after Anne became queen of England, and Sarah the Duchess of Marlborough.

In 1678 Sarah Jennings married Colonel Churchill, afterwards Duke of Marlborough, a gentleman attached to the service of the Duke of York; and when Duke James was sent into exile the Churchills accompanied his family, and thus Anne was still permitted to enjoy the presence of her favorite friend.

When James was recalled to England, his daughter Anne and Sarah Churchill returned to their native land; and upon the marriage of the Princess Anne to Prince George of Denmark, in 1683, King Charles of England settled upon his niece and her husband the sum of £20,000 a year, and gave to her as a residence the Cockpit, a capacious building which had formerly been the theatre of Whitehall Palace. Prince George Louis of Hanover, afterwards George I. of England, had been a former suitor for the hand of the Princess Anne, but on account of mutual aversion, when the royal couple met for the first time, the match was broken off, and the Prince of Denmark became the successful suitor. The Prince of Denmark was poor and was possessed of little influence, but he was a Protestant, and that was esteemed a sufficient merit in his favor. He is described as a “fair, good-natured, heavy-looking young man, who spoke bad French, loved good wine, and was rather awkward and bashful in his manners. He succeeded, however, in pleasing the ‘gentle Lady Anne’; and as they were both endued with good dispositions and equal tempers, and neither of them very capable of discovering each other’s deficiencies, this marriage proved extremely happy, and they lived together in uninterrupted harmony”; though, like most royal marriages, the princess and her future husband were allowed a very short time to make each other’s acquaintance; for the marriage took place nine days after the Prince of Denmark had been welcomed to London by the king and queen of England and the parents of his future bride. The nuptial ceremony was celebrated with great pomp, in the Royal Chapel at Saint James’s, by the Bishop of London, at ten o’clock at night.

“The bride was given away by her merry uncle, Charles II., who delighted in being present at marriages and christenings. The chapel was brilliantly lighted; and as the king, the queen, the Duke and Duchess of York, and the leading nobility then in London were present, the scene was magnificent, dazzling, and joyous. The citizens of London also took their part in the nocturnal festivity. Throughout the metropolis the bells rang all night, bonfires blazed at every door, the conduits ran with wine, and showers of fireworks and other popular sports and pastimes were provided for the amusement of the people.”

“The Lady Anne, although not a peerless beauty, possessed considerable personal attractions. She was of middle size, but not so majestic as her sister Mary; and her hair was a deep chestnut-brown; her complexion ruddy. Her face was round, but rather comely than handsome; her features were strong and regular; the only blemish in her face was that of a defluxion, which had affected her eyes when young, and left a contraction in her upper lids and given a cloudiness to her countenance. Her bones were small, her hands beautiful. She had an excellent ear for music, was a good performer on the guitar; and her voice being strong, clear, flexible, and melodious, she took pleasure in the practice of vocal harmony.”

When Anne’s establishment was appointed by her uncle, King Charles, after her marriage, Sarah Churchill was permitted to become one of her ladies.

The death of Charles II. in 1685, which placed her father upon the English throne, as James II., caused very little immediate change in the household of the Princess Anne. She became one of the central figures at her father’s court, but possessed no particular influence, and occupied herself with court gossip and card-playing, in the society of her favorite, Lady Churchill, when not engaged with the cares of her nursery. The Princess Anne was a good wife and devoted mother; and although all her children but one died in early infancy, it was not through neglect on her part. But Anne was poorly fitted by tastes or nature to play the brilliant part in history which fortune afterwards decreed to her lot. She was simply a good-natured, commonplace, and very weak-minded woman, led by the stronger minds of her favorites, and swayed by every political breeze around her. Her favorites, to her credit be it said, however, were women, and not men admirers. So that although her character was undeniably weak and petty, her life as a wife and mother was blameless, and her heart was kindly. And yet such were the circumstances which environed her after-years, that the name of this simple-minded queen, whose narrow understanding might have been compassed by the circumference of her thimble, and “who put on her crown as she would have put on her cap”—the name of this unaspiring, unqueenly woman, who would have been more at home as a fish-wife than as a sovereign, was pronounced with awe from one end of Europe to the other; and even the Grand Monarque himself, “hitherto the insolent arbiter of the world,” the magnificent, the matchlessly imperial Louis Quatorze, trembled on his throne before Queen Anne and her victorious general, the Duke of Marlborough.

The French general, the Duke of Vendôme, who replaced the defeated Marshal Villeroi, wrote concerning Anne’s illustrious military leader:—

“Every one here is ready to take off his hat at the very mention of Marlborough’s name.”

When, in after-years, the daring generalship of Marlborough had been replaced by the daring ambition of Bolingbroke, whose marvellous and impassioned eloquence caused even Mr. Pitt in later years to exclaim, when asked what treasures he would especially like to snatch from out of the shadows of the past, “I would choose one of the lost Decades of Livy and a speech of Bolingbroke’s!”—no wonder that with such generals and such orators, the name of Queen Anne was reflected to the world in shining glory.

And what was the woman herself doing in the midst of such stirring times and brilliant opportunities? Quarrelling with the haughty, arrogant-willed Duchess of Marlborough; bickering over some contested point of favoritism; or becoming a puppet in the hands of an ignorant bedchamber-woman, who ruled the queen because this politic but petty Mrs. Masham knew enough to hold her tongue when her royal mistress desired to rave against her overbearing Duchess of Marlborough; and because Mrs. Masham was smart enough to use her little stock of brains in scheming to entrap the favor of the wily politicians who courted her smiles because her ignorant but keen cunning had gained the friendship of the queen.

Observing such a state of things, it is little wonder that the quick-witted Addison flashed the scintillating sparks of his keen humor all over the pages of his famous “Spectator papers,” which appeared at that time.

Great Britain had been for some time divided into two strong parties, known as the Whigs and Tories. The Tories held that the rights of kings were divine, while the Whigs contended a king ruled for the good of his subjects, and that by illegal or oppressive acts he forfeited his right to reign, and could be justifiably dethroned by his people. The Tories upheld the English Protestant church, but detested the Presbyterians and Dissenters, while they feared the Roman Catholics; while the Whigs maintained that the Reformed religion being the religion of the state, a Roman Catholic could not lawfully be placed at its head. There was also a third party, called the Jacobites, who were more violent Tories, being partisans of the deposed James II., who, on account of his Roman Catholic principles, which caused him to entertain certain designs against the religion and liberty of the state, had been obliged to fly from England upon the appearance of his Protestant son-in-law, William, Prince of Orange, who had invaded England at the head of an army, and been placed by the English people upon the throne in conjunction with his wife Mary, the eldest daughter of James II., who had been educated a Protestant.

Notwithstanding the benefit to the country arising from the accession of the Protestant William and Mary to the throne in place of the Catholic James II., the unfilial plottings and intrigues of the princesses Mary and Anne, abetted by their husbands, William, Prince of Orange, and George, Duke of Denmark, against the indulgent and kind-hearted James II., their father, was outrageous and dastardly. Looking at the kingdom, it was well that James II. was dethroned, and that his Catholic son, called the “Pretender,” the half-brother of Mary and Anne, was forever debarred from gaining his ancestral rights of succession; but looking at the side of the treatment which King James received at the hands of his daughters, upon whom he had lavished every indulgent kindness, the treacherous scheming, which in the course of events resulted in vast benefits to England and to Europe, have at the same time forever covered the names of the children of James II. with the stigma of most contemptible and unfeeling and wicked ingratitude.

James II. having been deposed, William and Mary of Orange ascended the throne of England, and William is to be commended for several wise measures, and England was much the gainer by her change of masters; but his usurpation, which is called in history the “Revolution,” is somewhat to be questioned upon the grounds of justice. That it was highly beneficial no Protestant can for a moment doubt; that the change of government caused by the celebrated act of Parliament called the “Bill of Rights,” which raised William and Mary to the throne, to be succeeded by the Princess Anne, and in case Anne died without heirs, that the right should then descend to the Electress of Hanover, which succession afterwards brought in the Protestant Georges of Hanover in place of the Catholic House of Stuarts,—that a revolution which caused this change of government was beneficial to England and the world, is not to be underestimated. This extraordinary but bloodless revolution occurred in 1688, just one hundred years before the bloody and terrible French Revolution of 1789. But leaving political questions and turning to the personal history of the Princess Anne, we find her engaged in an ignoble squabble with her sister, the Queen Mary, over the allowance which shall be allotted to the maintenance of the household of the Princess Anne. The princess had schemed with her sister Mary and the Prince of Orange to dethrone their father; and now that Mary is queen, Anne finds her allowance given by her indulgent father cut off, and in being treacherous to her father she has only worsted her own condition. So disgraceful was this sisterly quarrel, augmented by the haughty Lady Churchill (now the Countess of Marlborough), who fomented the disputes between the sisters, that at last the king and queen were forced to make a compromise with Anne, and allow the princess £50,000 a year. As Lord and Lady Marlborough were known to be enthusiastic partisans of Anne, they fell under the displeasure of King William and Queen Mary, who demanded that Anne should banish them from her household, and the Earl of Marlborough was deprived of his offices. But this opposition only increased the power of Lord and Lady Marlborough over the princess, and she strenuously refused to part with her overbearing favorite.

The lord chamberlain having been sent to Lady Marlborough with the royal order to remove from Whitehall, Anne immediately left Whitehall herself, declaring that she “would live on bread and water, between four walls, with her dear Mrs. Freeman, rather than that her friend should ever be separated from her faithful Mrs. Morley.” These assumed names of Freeman and Morley had been chosen by the Princess Anne and Lady Marlborough that they might converse and write to each other with greater freedom from conventional restraints; and their respective husbands were also called by them, the Lord Marlborough, Mr. Freeman, and the Duke of Denmark, Mr. Morley; and many were the political intrigues, as well as friendly secrets, which they disclosed to each other under these false names. These confidential letters became a powerful weapon in the hands of the proud Lady Marlborough in after-years, for when she found her influence over Queen Anne was waning, and another was usurping her place as royal favorite, the arrogant Lady Marlborough threatened to publish these secret epistles, which would reveal all of Anne’s treachery against her father and various other political intrigues. The fear of this exposure made Anne a puppet in the hands of the self-willed but brilliant duchess long after Anne’s intense liking had turned to intense detestation.

The death of Queen Mary in 1694 somewhat changed Anne’s position. When Anne heard of her sister’s dangerous illness, she sent a request that she might be allowed to come and see her; but their quarrels had never been forgotten, and though Mary refused to see Anne, she sent a message of forgiveness.

Anne now succeeded in becoming reconciled to King William, and she received the greater part of her sister’s jewels, in token of his friendliness.

Of many children Anne had only one son remaining. He was a very bright and interesting boy of eleven years of age. He had been treated with great kindness by King William and Queen Mary, even throughout the disgraceful family quarrels. But this beautiful boy, around whom so many fond hopes clustered, died suddenly with scarlet fever in 1700, having just celebrated his eleventh birthday. The loss of this only child, the last of six, was a terrible blow to the fond heart of the Princess Anne. But she was soon called from private griefs to public duties.

In 1702 King William died, and Anne was immediately proclaimed queen.

“In the commencement of the reign of Anne, the Earl of Marlborough was a Tory; but his wife became a Whig, and, as a natural consequence, Marlborough was soon drawn over to that party. Admiral Churchill, his brother, was a violent Tory; Lord Sunderland, his son-in-law, was a violent Whig; Lady Tyrconnel, the sister of Lady Marlborough, was an enthusiastic Jacobite, and was at this time one of the court of the exiled king. This one instance will give some idea of the manner in which not only the nation but private families were divided by the spirit of faction.

“A continued series of disputes and intrigues agitated the country; and among several minor events was the trial of Dr. Sacheverel for preaching a seditious sermon, a circumstance unimportant in itself, but which was made to serve the purposes of a faction, and to inflame the populace almost to frenzy. Never, perhaps, did party spirit rage in a manner at once so disgraceful, so vicious, and so ludicrous. It was not the strife of principles; it was not, like the civil wars of the preceding century, a grand struggle between liberty and despotism,—it was a vile spirit of faction, which had filled the nation with spleen and rancor, and extinguished the seeds of good-nature, compassion, and humanity; which had affected at once the morals and the common sense of the people; and even interfered with the administration of justice.

“The women, instead of tempering the animosities of the time, blew up the flame of discord. Addison, in some of the most elegant papers of the ‘Spectator,’ attempted to mitigate this evil spirit. He attacked the men with grave humor and graver argument; he endeavored to bring back the women to the decorum and reserve of their sex by the most exquisite raillery, that delicate mixture of satire and compliment in which he excelled; he reminded these petticoat politicians and viragoes of the tea-table that party spirit was in its nature a male vice, made up of many angry passions, which were altogether repugnant to the softness, modesty, and other endearing qualities proper to their sex.

“He assured them there was nothing so injurious to a pretty face as party zeal; that he had never known a party woman who kept her beauty for a twelve-month; and he conjured them, as they valued their complexions, to abstain from all disputes of this nature. Every one will recollect the admirable description of the Whig ladies and the Tory ladies drawn up in battle array at the opera, and patched, by way of distinction, on opposite sides of the face; the perplexity of the Whig beauty, who had a mole on the Tory side of her forehead, which exposed her to the imputation of having gone over to the enemy; and the despair of the Tory partisan, whom an unlucky pimple had reduced to the necessity of applying a patch to the wrong side of her face.

“But it was all in vain; a transient smile might have been excited at such palpable absurdity; some partial good was perhaps effected; but fashion and faction were far too strong to be acted upon by wit, or argument, or eloquence, or satire. At a time when a low-bred, artful, ignorant bedchamber-woman, with no more sense than would have sufficed to smooth a crumpled ribbon or comb a lapdog, possessed supreme power, and Swift, Arbuthnot, Harley, and Bolingbroke were dancing attendance in her anteroom, it was in vain to preach to women the forbearance and reserve proper to their sex, to point out the confined sphere of their duties, or to remind them of the advice of Pericles to the Athenian women, ‘not to make themselves talked of one way or another.’ Mrs. Masham ruled the queen, but she was herself the contemptible tool of a set of designing men. In the end she and her tutor Harley triumphed; the Tories prevailed; the Whigs were all turned out; Marlborough was not only disgraced at court, but, by a sudden turn of feeling produced in the popular mind by the calumnies and contrivance of his enemies, he became an object of contempt and hatred; and he whose victories had been hailed with such national pride and exultation, found himself ‘baited with the rabble’s curse.’ This might have been contemned, for mere popular clamor dies away, and leaves no trace on the dispassionate page of history; but when Swift, the political gladiator of that time, collected all his terrible powers of invective and satire, and sarcasm, and fell upon the devoted general, branding, stabbing, and slashing at every stroke, he left the duke standing like a column scathed by the thunderbolt, and the lapse of a century has hardly enabled us to distinguish the truth from falsehood of his rancorous libels.”

The brilliant victories of the Duke of Marlborough, in alliance with the German princes under Prince Eugene, had filled all Europe with wonder. In 1704, the victory of Blenheim was achieved, and notwithstanding Marshal Villars’ heroism at the battle of Malplaquet, in 1709, the victory was gained by Marlborough and Prince Eugene, though so great was the loss of the allies, that Villars wrote to Louis XIV.: “If God permits us to lose such another battle, your Majesty can count on your enemies being destroyed.”

Marlborough had joined the Whigs because they were in favor of war; but now the Tories were gaining the ascendency in England; and with their coming into power peace was declared, and the Marlboroughs were deposed from their high places.

Wearied of the ill-temper of the haughty duchess, which broke out in most violent language even in the presence of the queen, Anne at last determined to rid herself of her overbearing companion, whose strong will had for so long a time awed her into submission; while the necessary military generalship of the illustrious duke had long kept the queen from daring to dismiss the insolent duchess, who at length forgot even her politic behavior in her fits of anger, and endeavored to scold back the favor of the queen which had been lost to her by her own impolitic arrogance, and through the wily cunning of her own relation, Mrs. Masham, whom she had herself recommended to the queen for the position of bedchamber-woman, never imagining that this poor ignorant relative would usurp her own place as royal favorite.

Before Anne had ascended the throne, a little incident occurred which eventually led to the downfall of the duchess. The Princess Anne was one day alone in her private drawing-room at St. James. The Duchess of Marlborough entered the anteroom where the princess’ waiting-woman, afterwards Mrs. Masham, was in attendance. Observing a pair of gloves upon the table, the duchess, thinking they were her own, drew them upon her hands. Whereupon the attendant remarked that the gloves belonged to the princess, who had sent her to get them, as her mistress was about to enter her carriage. “What! have I touched anything that has been upon the hands of that odious woman!” exclaimed the duchess in a fury of ill-temper; and tearing them from her fingers she threw them on the floor and retired, little thinking that the insulting words had been overheard by the princess in the adjoining room. From that moment the ultimate disgrace of the imperious duchess was determined upon, although, owing to her husband’s victories and her own threats of publishing the confidential letters of her “loving Mrs. Morley,” her downfall was long delayed.

Queen Anne had not ceased to be a loving wife, when she became a sovereign; and the death of her husband in 1708 was a terrible blow to her. As the queen sat by her dead, though she was the monarch of a vast realm, she was the slave of court etiquette; and as the Duchess of Marlborough still held her office as mistress of the robes, this tyrannical etiquette required that the hated duchess should invade even the sanctuary of Anne’s beloved dead, and lead the queen from the funereal chamber.

But the days of the ascendency of the brilliant but terrible virago were nearly numbered. In 1710, the Whig ministry was deposed, and the Tories came into power.

“Anne could not cope with her discarded favorite in eloquence and violence, but she could resist and dissemble; above all, she could hold her tongue.” Influenced by the Tories, who gained the ear of the queen through the connivance of Mrs. Masham, it was secretly arranged that the Whig ministry should be forced to retire; that the Marlboroughs should be disgraced, and that peace should be negotiated with Louis XIV. The proud duchess had not yet been publicly informed of her impending downfall, but rumors had reached her of the queen’s animosity. Hastening to Kensington, she forced herself into the presence of the queen, and demanded with the air of a sovereign rather than a subject, of what she was accused. The queen, aware that her only weapon against the sarcastic and voluble tongue of the duchess was silence, remarked with cutting composure: “I shall make no answer to anything you say.” This was more than the enraged duchess could bear, and she launched forth into such a terrible tongue-lashing of violent vituperation, that the incensed queen turned to leave the room; whereupon the duchess exclaimed, “I am confident you will suffer in this world or the next for so much inhumanity.”

“That is my business,” retorted the queen, as she lifted the portière and retired, leaving the discomfited duchess to weep in a fury of rage and humiliation.

They never met again. When the Duke of Marlborough returned from his campaign, not all his condescension in begging on his knees that the golden key,—his wife’s badge of office,—might be retained by her for a few weeks sufficed to appease the queen. “I will have it in two days,” exclaimed the angry Anne; and upon reporting his failure to his indignant wife, she also hurled upon his poor head her invectives of wrath, and throwing the golden keys upon the floor, the haughty virago, who had lost all power over her queen, but still maintained her ascendency in her husband’s heart in spite of all her outbursts of temper, sullenly retired, leaving her humiliated spouse to pick up her tardily relinquished badge of office and meekly bear it back in shame and sorrow to her offended sovereign. Hard fate for a man to fall into the snare of playing the go-between of two angry women, especially when one is his wife and the other his sovereign.

The Duke and Duchess of Marlborough afterwards went abroad, and their history is no longer connected with that of Queen Anne.

The famous peace of Utrecht was signed in 1713. The remainder of Queen Anne’s reign was unmomentous. After her experience with the Duchess of Marlborough she determined to assert her own will, but she deceived no one but herself, as she was now alternately swayed by her two favorites, the Duchess of Somerset, who was appointed mistress of the robes, and Lady Masham, whom she had raised to a title and made the keeper of the privy purse. Swift says of Anne at this time:—

“Often, out of fear of being imposed upon by an over-caution, she would impose upon herself; she took a delight in refusing those who were thought to have the greatest power with her, even in the most reasonable things, and such as were necessary for her service; nor would let them be done till she fell into the humor of it herself.”

In her best days, Anne was merely a dull, uninformed woman, without the slightest literary tastes, and yet her reign is called the “Augustan Age of Anne,” and the “wits of Queen Anne’s time” are held only second to the “poets of the Elizabethan age.” No one would probably have been more surprised than Anne herself to have been thus classed with the glorious names of literary fame, for she never read, and was hardly cognizant of the existence of the brilliant minds which gave her reign its brightest lustre. Sir Isaac Newton, Pope, Dryden, Addison, Steele, Swift, De Foe, Gay, Prior, Arbuthnot, Congreve, Young, Parnell, Granville, and Bishop Atterbury, were the most celebrated among the literary lights in her time.

The daily etiquette of the court life of Queen Anne is thus described:—

“The bedchamber-woman came into waiting before her majesty arose, and previous to prayers. If a lady of the bedchamber were present, the bedchamber-woman handed her the queen’s linen, and the lady put it on her Majesty. Every time the queen changed her dress in the course of the day her habiliments made the same formal progress from hand to hand. When the queen washed her hands, her page of the back stairs brought and set upon a side-table a basin and ewer. Then the bed-chamber-woman placed it before the queen, and knelt on the other side of the table over against the queen, the lady of the bedchamber only looking on. The bedchamber-woman poured the water out of the ewer on the queen’s hands. It was also her duty to pull on the queen’s gloves when her Majesty could not do it herself, which was often the case, owing to her infirmity of gout. The page of the back stairs was always called to put on the queen’s shoes. When Queen Anne dined in public, her page passed the glass to her bedchamber-woman, and she to the lady in waiting; in due time it reached the lips of royalty.”

There was little of the pomp and ceremony which distinguished the court of the proud Elizabeth; indeed, Anne herself was too careless and dull-witted, and the imperious Duchess of Marlborough was too defiant of all restraints to have insured that subservient obeisance which Elizabeth demanded and received. Having been obliged, even in her coronation procession, to be borne in a low arm-chair on account of her gout, which prevented her walking in regal majesty as all her predecessors had done, she continued subject to this infirmity, which her gross eating and drinking greatly increased. The stormy disputes between her ministers, Oxford and Bolingbroke, became so violent that at length the fear of having to submit to a third terrible council with them, after two hot disputes had been interrupted by her attacks of violent illness, caused a burning fever, which threatened her life. Submitting to the old remedy of bleeding, she was found to be no better, and it was evident that her end was near. Oxford having resigned his office of lord treasurer in a rage, it became necessary to appoint some one in his place. The Duke of Shrewsbury was suggested for the office, but he would not accept the staff unless the queen herself laid it in his hand. Accordingly the white wand was placed in the stiffening fingers of the dying queen, and the Duke of Shrewsbury, approaching her bedside, asked:—

“Do you know to whom you give the white wand?”

“Yes,” murmured the still-conscious queen; “to the Duke of Shrewsbury; and for God’s sake, use it for the good of my people!”

Thus perished the last of the sovereigns of the House of Stuart.

“The British sovereign is dead and the throne is vacant,” were the few but expressive words sent to George of Hanover; and without opposition, King George I. ascended the throne of Great Britain.

MARIA THERESA.
A.D. 1717-1780.

“’Tis beauty that doth oft make women proud;

’Tis virtue that doth make them most admir’d;

’Tis government that makes them seem divine.”

—Shakespeare.

ON the 13th of May, 1717, in the royal palace at Vienna, a baby princess first opened her wondering eyes upon this world, in whose history she was destined to play an important, and what is still better, a highly commendable part. This illustrious infant was christened by the titles, Maria Theresa Valperga Amelia Christina.

Her father was Charles VI. of Austria, emperor of Germany. Lady Wortley Montagu, who, as Mary Pierrepont, had figured as one of the young ladies appointed to bear the train of Queen Anne during her coronation ceremony, afterwards visited the court of Vienna, shortly before the birth of Maria Theresa, and describes the mother of that princess, the lovely Elizabeth Christina of Brunswick, as an empress of sweet and gracious manners and amiable character.

But Maria Theresa far outshone both her parents in beauty of person, strength of character, and marvellous executive abilities, which have placed her in the very front rank of female sovereigns; yea, still more, on account of the rare combination of virtues and strength which her character manifested, she stands at the very head of the list of famous queens, equalled only perhaps by Isabella of Castile.

In making this assertion, we refer only to Maria Theresa’s individual claims to greatness; not to any importance of the times, or concomitant circumstances, which formed so large a part of Elizabeth’s acknowledged powers; not upon great statesmen, great generals, or great political or religious questions, depends the fame of Maria Theresa. It was not the vast political importance of her achievements, or the place which her kingdom held in the rank of nations; but it was the mind and nature of the sovereign herself, irrespective of any and all surroundings, which makes her character luminous with a stronger and more effulgent light than shines forth from the name of any other female sovereign of the world. In herself alone, in her own virtues; her strong and well-balanced mind; her undaunted courage; her unswerving allegiance to what is true, and pure, and lovely in womankind, joined to an almost masculine executive ability, which woman’s usually narrow horizon often weakens, by sacrificing grand and comprehensive policies to a pettiness of details; an executive ability as statesman, and general, which made her no mean foe for the vaunted greatness of Frederick the Second to combat,—these traits, betokening a mind peerless among women, a character peerless among sovereigns,—abilities ranking her with the greatest of her times,—and best of all, virtues, which placed her individually first upon the list of female monarchs of the world; virtues which surround her name with an undying halo of glory;—such are the rightful claims of Maria Theresa to the most honored place among the famous queens of history.

MARIA THERESA.

And yet we do not give this illustrious character as much space as others in this book, because the events of her reign were not as vital upon the history of Europe and the world as other epochs, and because the very beauty and purity of her character demands no long panegyric to prove her greatness; therefore her reign will be summed up in a few words.

Catherine II. of Russia was probably equal to Maria Theresa in executive ability; but Catherine is so revolting as a woman, so devoid of every virtue of heart or soul, that her fame is rather infamous notoriety than commendable greatness. Elizabeth doubtless possessed as strong a mind and keener cunning, and was undeniably far more liberally educated; but Elizabeth was so pitiably weak in her jealous vanity and heartless and condemnatory gallantries, that she must rank beneath Maria Theresa when they are individually compared.

Isabella of Castile stands nearer to Maria Theresa in individual greatness than any of the other famous queens. We have not included a sketch of her life in this volume, because her history is so indissolubly intertwined with that of Ferdinand V. of Spain; and in giving his life in the companion book of “Famous Rulers,” we also there outlined a brief sketch of Isabella of Castile.

Maria Theresa is the most illustrious example of an “imperial woman of business.” She was big-brained and energetic, having none of the mental weaknesses of voluptuous natures. Lacking thereby, perhaps, somewhat in warm emotions, but by her own inherent nature she was exempted from falling into error. She was a model of virtue both in public and private life.

“Maria Theresa was an embodiment of executive regality. She had the promptitude, forethought, and vigilance of a detective officer, and discharged duty with the rigid precision of a policeman. She was essentially practical, and thoroughly industrious-minded. She was ready in an emergency, equal to a difficulty, and sturdy for order and regulation. She met reverses with boldness and fortitude, and used prosperity for instituting reforms. She was greatly remedial, remedying sudden mischances by encountering them firmly, and remedying existing evils with the strong hand of eradication.”

Frederick the Great, although politically her foe, said of her: “Although I have made war against her, I have never been her personal enemy. I have always respected her; she was an honor to her sex, and the glory of her throne.”