Joan of Arc

Historic Girlhoods

(Part One)

By
RUPERT S. HOLLAND
Author of "Historic Boyhoods," "Historic Events of Colonial Days," etc., etc.

PHILADELPHIA
GEORGE W. JACOBS & COMPANY
PUBLISHERS

Copyright, 1910, by
George W. Jacobs & Company

All rights reserved
Printed in U.S.A.

CONTENTS

(PART ONE)

These stories in general follow the actual records of history, but in a few cases, where little was known of certain girls, the author has felt at liberty to add incidents illustrating the characters and the times.

ILLUSTRATIONS

(PART ONE)

To
my sister
LUCY

I
St. Catherine
The Girl of Siena: 1347-1380

The old Italian city of Siena lies upon three hills, on one of which gleams the great white Cathedral, and on another perches the scarcely less commanding Church of San Domenico. In the fourteenth century underwood and hanging gardens crept up the sides of these hills, with only a narrow winding road to lead from one part of the city to another. The valley lying between the two hills that were crowned with churches was known as the Valle Piatta, and a little way up one slope stood the small stone-built house of a dyer named Giacomo Benincasa. On the opposite hillside lived his married daughter Bonaventura, and Giacomo's wife often sent her two youngest children, Stephen and Catherine, through the valley on errands to their sister's house. Their message to Bonaventura safely delivered the children were free to play in the valley or pick flowers or rest by the roadside as long as they chose.

One summer afternoon Catherine, who was a small girl with dark hair and eyes, felt drowsy with the warm airs of the lowlands and loitered behind her brother as they were returning from Bonaventura's. He went on, humming a tune of the goatherds. She, stopping under a tree for shade, looked down a little path that led to a fountain called the Fontebranda, where most of the people of Siena got their water. Then she looked up across the hillsides of vineyards and hanging gardens to the cliff where the Church of San Domenico shone very white in the brilliant sunlight. She looked, and rubbed her eyes, and looked again. Then her amazement vanished and she simply stood still, rapt in a kind of ecstasy, which would not permit her to doubt what she saw nor turn her eyes away.

As she stood there entranced, she saw a great throne set upon the very roof of the Church of San Domenico, and on that throne sat the Christ and about Him were grouped the figures of many saints. As she looked the figure on the throne stretched out His right hand and made the sign of the cross over her, as she had seen the Bishop do when he gave his people his blessing. The eyes of the other saints were fixed upon her as though they had a special interest in her, and in turn each of them made her the sign of blessing. The vision held her spellbound, and although people on foot and in wagons passed along the road near where she stood, she did not turn nor pay any attention to them. She seemed to have forgotten everything except the vision high up on the hill.

Stephen had gone on along the road, thinking that his sister was following. After a time he spoke to her, but received no answer. Then he turned around and to his surprise found she was not in sight. He walked back until he caught sight of her standing beneath the tree. "Catherine!" he called. She made no reply. He could not understand why she stood so still, gazing steadily up into the sky. He went nearer, and spoke again. She did not answer, so he took her hand and said, "Tell me, Catherine, what are you doing? Why do you stop here?"

The girl moved, and slowly turned her head, as though she had just been waked from a sound sleep. "Oh, Stephen, if you had but seen what I saw, you wouldn't have disturbed me so," she said slowly. Again she looked up to the Church of San Domenico, but now the vision was gone, and there were only the white walls gleaming in the sunshine.

"What was it, Catherine? Please tell me," begged Stephen.

"Nay, I cannot. 'Tis a secret," she answered. In spite of his pleading and his curiosity she would not tell him. Shaking her head at all his questions she went up the road with him to their father's house.

Supper caused Stephen to forget his sister's strange actions, but it had no such effect on the little girl herself. She felt that she would never forget the miracle, and as soon as she was alone she tried to remember exactly how the vision had looked to her. She found that she could recall it, and she loved to do so, and to wonder what was its message.

In that age the Church and wars occupied much of the people's minds, and little Catherine was already familiar with the stories of many of the saints and of the customs and manners of the Church. Her father was a well-known and respected citizen of Siena, a prosperous man, but in no way especially religious. Her mother had been too much occupied with caring for her large family to give much thought to the Church. So Catherine decided that neither of them would understand her vision, and determined to keep it a secret. But she thought over it much of the time until she finally decided that it meant she was to lead a different sort of life from that of her brothers and sisters and playmates. Thereupon she began to wonder what it was best for her to do.

Her first desire was to leave the bustling turbulent city of Siena and seek out some place in the wilderness where she might be alone and live like the ancient hermits. She planned how she would go, and early one morning set out, prudently carrying a loaf of bread in a bag under her arm. She went down through the Valle Piatta and past her sister's house until she came to one of the city gates. She had never been outside the walls of Siena before, and she hesitated as she stood there, thinking of the wild and unprotected country that lay beyond. But Catherine was brave, and she hesitated only a moment, and then went through the gate and out into the country.

At that time there were bandits and robbers and troops of marauding soldiers all through the hills and valleys of Italy, and people rarely ventured beyond the city walls. Catherine, however, held to the road, passing an occasional solitary house where some goat-herd or farmer lived. At last a brook tempted her to leave the highway and follow along its course, and in time it brought her to a cave made by a shelving rock that came close down to the bank of the stream. This seemed just the place for a hermit's home, and she went into the cave and fell upon her knees to give thanks that she had been brought safely to this refuge. Again she fell into a trance, as she had done on the day when she saw the vision. She thought she heard voices which told her that though she was to lead a different life from her friends she must do her work among people and not alone in the wilderness, and bade her go home before her father and mother should think she was lost.

When she had heard this counsel Catherine rose and went out of the cave. She looked back along the path by which she had come; it seemed a long way home to Siena and she felt tired and warm. She sat down on the bank of the brook and ate some of the bread she had brought with her and then fell asleep. When she woke she was rested, and jumping up hurried back to the road so that she might reach the gate by sunset. She came to the city walls in time to pass through the gate just before the guard closed it for the night, and went straight on to her father's house. Fortunately her parents had not been worried by her absence, supposing she had been spending the day at her sister's.

Giacomo Benincasa and his wife Lapa had had thirteen children, and they did not suspect that their youngest daughter Catherine was in any way different from her sisters. They knew she was a very quiet girl, rather shy, fond of going to the great Cathedral on top of the hill and of talking with any nuns or friars whom she met. She was pretty, with long brown hair that many people admired, and they expected to marry her to the son of some one of their well-to-do friends. The other girls had all been married early, according to the Italian custom of those times, and Catherine was barely twelve years old when her father and mother began to consider what favorable marriage they might make for her. Her mother urged her to give more attention to her dress, to take more care in arranging her hair, to wear some jewelry she had bought for her, and to go about more with boys and girls of her own age. But Catherine did not want to do any of these things. She became more shy than ever, and when she met any of her father's young apprentices she turned and ran away as fast as she could. The mother knew that Catherine was devoted to her older sister Bonaventura, and begged her to try to persuade Catherine to do as other girls did. Bonaventura talked to her little sister, and finally Catherine agreed to wear brighter and more becoming dresses and to rub certain oils into her hair to give it a peculiar light golden color which was then considered more beautiful than the natural dark shade. But it was only a few weeks before Catherine decided that these changes were all vanity, and went back to her old quiet dresses and simple way of wearing her long hair.

Now the good dyer and his wife realized that their little daughter was peculiar, and they went to Father Thomas della Fonte, a friar preacher who knew Catherine well, and begged him to talk to her. Father Thomas spent an afternoon with her, and to him the girl opened her heart and told of the vision she had seen and of her wish to become a sister of one of the religious orders of the church. He saw that her mind was set upon this wish, and did not try to dissuade her from it. "My dear daughter," he said, "I believe you have chosen the better part, and may our Lord give you grace to follow it. And now if you think well to follow my counsel, I would advise you to cut off your hair, which will prove to your parents that they must give up all hopes of your marriage, and will also save you the time that must needs be spent upon its care and adornment."

Catherine decided to take his advice at once, and so that same evening she locked herself in her room and cut off all her hair. In order to hide what she had done she covered her head with a coif, which was sometimes worn by grown women but never by girls as young as she. Next morning at breakfast her mother saw the coif and stared at her. "Why have you that on your head?" she asked in surprise. Catherine murmured some answer which her mother could not understand. Madame Lapa stepped forward and seizing the white headdress pulled it off. She saw that Catherine's beautiful hair was gone, and she gave a cry of anger which brought the rest of the family into the room. They were all indignant, and her father and brothers spoke harshly to her. "Your will must be curbed," said Giacomo. "You shall not do whatever you wish, no matter how absurd it may be, and so bring scorn upon all of us. You must do as your sisters have done."

Catherine appealed to her brothers. "I have no wish to anger any of you," she said. "I care nothing what you do with me, nor would I be a charge to any of you. I will live on bread and water and never ask anything better if only I may be let to live in peace without thought of other people."

Giacomo, however, would not yield to what he considered her caprices. His wife and sons agreed that Catherine was both obstinate and foolish and must be taught to do as she was told. Giacomo said, "I know what's the cause of this trouble. You have too much time to spend on your knees in prayer and you go to your room and think of strange things when you should be with the others. Hereafter you shan't have any room of your own, and you shall do the housework to keep from dreaming all day long."

His order was carried out. To show Catherine how little they thought of her fancies Madame Lapa dismissed the kitchen-maid, and Catherine was made to take her place and do all the household drudgery. Each of the family took every possible opportunity to reproach her for her obstinacy, and her father and mother talked to her by the hour at a time, seeking to bring her to what they considered a more sensible state of mind.

Catherine went about the housework faithfully. During the day she would occasionally find a chance to rest for a time in her brother Stephen's room while he was away, and at night she would sleep wherever she could find a bed. Often she simply curled up in a chair in the living-room. Through all this hard treatment she was patient and uncomplaining, until finally her sweetness and constancy began to amaze her parents and lead them to believe that perhaps she was different from other girls and must be allowed to follow her own path. Once they had reached this conclusion Giacomo called the family together and told them that although he and his wife had hoped that Catherine would marry as her sisters had, they saw that she had set her heart on the life of a nun, and that henceforth she was to do as she wished.

In that age hardship and privation were usually considered necessary to goodness. Catherine was so intent on meriting the virtue which her visions had seemed to predict for her that she allowed herself no comforts. More than that she made herself endure many hardships. She took for her room a small cell under her father's house, lighted by only one window. Her bed was made of a few planks with a log of wood for a pillow. Here she felt herself to be as much alone as though she were a hermit in the woods, and here she spent hours in meditation and in reciting long prayers. She wore rough clothes and she gradually trained herself to do with very little sleep and almost no food. She got to the point where she allowed herself only a half hour's sleep at a time and could live on a little bread, some raw herbs, and a cup of water. She had been very strong, but this severe way of living told greatly on her health.

Her mother, however, was much disturbed at these hardships which Catherine insisted on imposing upon herself, and tried to win her to a more healthful life. She begged her to give up her hard wood bed and sleep with her. Catherine did not want to vex her by refusing, and agreed to this, but as soon as her mother was asleep she slipped out of bed and stole down-stairs to her own chamber. She was back again before her mother woke. After a night or two of this Madame Lapa discovered the ruse, and begged Catherine to stay in bed with her. Thereupon the girl arranged two pieces of wood under the sheet so that she would have to lie on them, thinking she would discipline herself in this way. It was evident that she would have her own will, and so at last her mother gave in. "Daughter," she said, "I see well it boots not for me to strive with you any longer. It is but time wasted. Go your way and rest at whatever times and in what manner you will."

Catherine was so determined to imitate the early saints of the Church, who had in many cases seemed to win virtue by the pains they endured, that she now took to beating herself with rods and wearing a sharp-pointed chain underneath her dress. She did all these things in the hope that she might one day be considered worthy to join the order of Sisters of the Blessed Dominic.

These new hardships were too much for her strength and she became ill. Her good mother, more disturbed than ever, insisted on taking her daughter to the baths of Vignone, which were famous for the healing effect of the sulphur in the water. On the very first day Catherine placed herself under the spout where the sulphurous water came scalding hot into the bath, and standing there suffered silently greater pains from the hot water than she had been able to inflict upon herself at home. Madame Benincasa, upbraiding her daughter for what seemed to her the sheerest madness, brought her back to Siena, and there Catherine, worn out and only a shadow of her former strong self, took to her bed for a time.

While she was still sick she begged her parents to intercede with the Sisters of Penance and learn if they would not admit her to their order as a novice. Giacomo and Lapa, now realizing that their extraordinary daughter would be happy in no other kind of life, went to the Sisters with this request. They were told that it was contrary to all the customs of the Sisters to admit young girls. The parents pleaded, and finally some of the Sisters agreed to go to Benincasa's house to see his daughter. They found Catherine very thin and pale, and listened to her story of how she had long before renounced all the pleasures and vanities of this world. She talked so earnestly that the Sisters were convinced, and as a result agreed a little later that she should be admitted to their number. At this news Catherine wept for joy, and gave fervent thanks to St. Dominic, praying that she might soon be well enough to receive the holy mantle of the Sisterhood. Her joy soon brought back her health, and shortly she was able to be out again, and to take the vows required of one who entered the Order, or the Mantellate, as the Sisters were called from the black mantle which they habitually wore. This was in 1364, when she was about seventeen years old.

After that Catherine spent several years largely in solitude, although her passion for flowers led her to cultivate a little garden, and her desire to read the writings of the Church caused her to study reading. She had never learned this at home, but now she asked one of the Sisters to teach her the alphabet, and when she had learned that, she set to work to learn to read. After many weeks of hard study she was finally able to say that she could read the various Offices of the Church.

If Catherine Benincasa had continued her life as a Sister of Penance she would have been simply one of many women who have dedicated their lives to withdrawing from the world and following the course of their own thoughts. She would have left no record of her works behind her nor would she have had much influence on her time. But as it happened she became a great influence, one of the most remarkable women of her century in Europe, and the person of whom the old city of Siena was most proud. She was continually seeing visions of what she was to do, and she followed their commands without hesitation. As a result she accomplished many remarkable things, most of which would have seemed impossible to even the strongest woman.

After a year or two in the convent she was bidden to go back to her father's house and serve there. One of her brothers had given up the dyer's trade and gone to the wars. He had led a wild life and finally been severely wounded and left for dead on the field of battle. In some manner he reached home. Catherine took care of him, and by her skilful nursing and her hopefulness brought him back to health. Her married sisters now had large families of their own, and Catherine delighted to care for the little children. At the same time she went out continually to nurse any of the neighbors who were ill or console them if they were in trouble, and so her reputation for self-sacrifice and charity spread through Siena, and people sent to her father's house begging that Catherine pray for them. Word of her visions and of messages given her directly by the saints was at the same time passed from mouth to mouth, and the devout of the city came to stand outside the house in the hope of seeing something of these miracles themselves.

In that superstitious age the stories of cures Catherine had effected by her skill at nursing were readily magnified into miracles, and although she was very young she was treated by all Siena with the greatest veneration. This was particularly fortunate for her family, for shortly after she had come home a new civil war broke out, and two factions of the citizens waged relentless war upon each other. Catherine's brothers were all on the side of the Twelve, as the leaders of one party were called, and the fortunes of the strife went against them. Their enemies determined to rid the city of all the defeated families, and many were killed or wounded. A friend of the Benincasa family came in haste to their house. "The whole band of your enemies is coming here to seize you!" he cried. "Come with me at once, and I will take you to the Church of St. Anthony by a secret way, where some of our friends have already taken refuge." Catherine rose from her seat, and said, "There is no need of that." She flung on her mantle and turned to her brothers. "Now, come with me, and fear nothing," said she. They followed, and she led them straight through the main square of the city, which was held by their enemies. When these angry and excited men saw Catherine they bowed to her reverently and moved aside so that she and her brothers might pass. She led them to the Hospital of Saint Mary, and recommended them to the care of the Master of the hospital, and said to them, "Stay concealed here for three days, and then you can come home in safety." They did as she told them, and when the three days had passed the city was quiet again, but all those of their party who had taken refuge at St. Anthony's had either been killed or thrown into prison, and Catherine's brothers were almost the only men of the party of the Twelve in Siena who came safely through the civil strife.

In May, 1374, Catherine went to the city of Florence in company with some other Sisters of Penance, and when she returned to Siena it was to find her home town suffering from the double calamity of famine and pestilence, evils which were only too common in those days. Never before had the plague raged so violently there. Panic seized the people, and all the wealthy sought safety in flight, leaving the poor in their distress with no one to help them. Family after family fell ill, until it seemed as though the whole city were in the hospitals. Catherine worked day and night, encouraging the other Sisters to do likewise, going into the most infected parts of the city, and with never a thought for her own safety. Many of those who were saved owed their lives directly to Catherine's ceaseless care, and as soon as they were well they told how she had nursed them; so the word spread that she had again performed miracles and that her touch was curing in itself. At the same time she saw that the scanty store of provisions in Siena was carefully used, instead of squandered as was the custom, and so word went far and wide that she had performed other miracles, such as multiplying loaves of bread and doubling casks of wine. The fame of this wonderful woman spread to Pisa and Florence, and so through Italy, and already pilgrims came to see her and sufferers to beg her to lay her hands on them and cure them.

Italy was at that time the prey of innumerable warring factions. Each city had its powerful families who were trying to make themselves lords and tyrants of their homes. The Catholic Church had been divided by what was called the Great Schism, and the Pope no longer lived at Rome, but had established his residence at the city of Avignon in Provence. The Pope and the Emperor were continually fighting for the control of the different cities of Italy, and the people would side first with one and then with the other. Catherine's name was now so well known that she was urged to help hold the cities to the Church, and with that object she traveled through Tuscany, trying to settle disputes and put an end to the many civil wars. She also urged men to go upon a great crusade against the Saracens which was being planned, and she won over not only Italian soldiers but foreigners as well to this cause. She was invited to visit Florence again to settle disputes there, and, obedient as ever to the call of what she considered her duty she rode to that city, being met at the gates by all the principal men, who showed her the greatest respect and besought her to make peace among the people. She spent some time there, visiting the sick, talking with the warlike, and healing bodies and minds by her sympathy and spirit of self-sacrifice.

All Italian patriots wanted the Pope to come back from Avignon to Rome, and Catherine believed that his return was necessary for the welfare of Italy. So, when her work at Florence was done, she set out for Avignon, to see the Pope, Gregory XI. She found Avignon a gay and wealthy city, and the Pope and cardinals well pleased with the great palace they had built upon a cliff high above the river Rhone. The city was safe from the wars which were devastating the rest of Europe and especially Italy, and none of the papal court were anxious to give up their luxurious and comfortable life there for the turbulence and trials of Rome. Among these pleasure-loving people arrived the simple black-clad Catherine, a somewhat strange figure in a city which boasted of its extravagance and pride. She was too famous now for the courtiers to disregard her, but they spoke bitter words of her behind her back and tried to prevent her accomplishing her purpose. The Pope was anxious to see her, and she met him, and told him how much he was needed in Italy. He, much impressed by her words, promised to give the matter due thought. She did not stay long, but in the short time she was there she won over many of the vain court and convinced the people that what she wished was right. Gregory was more moved by her appeal than by any that had been made to him before, and a little while after she left he took courage, outfaced the timid and slothful cardinals, and moved his seat back to the city by the Tiber.

For the rest of Catherine's life she was practically the patron saint of Italy. Wherever the plague raged there she went and nursed the sick; wherever there was strife she appeared to try to calm the waters. She won her great reputation by the actual good works that she did, but people were so fond of ascribing miracles to her that she came to seem really more than human. After her death she was officially proclaimed a saint by the Catholic Church, but before that Italy had come to believe her such a being.

In Siena to-day Catherine's house is regarded as a sacred place, and all through that quaint medieval city there are relics and reminders of her. She is the greatest daughter of that city, and one of the greatest of Italy. We must remember that she lived in a superstitious age, and that events which we might explain in a natural way the people of that age preferred to regard as miracles. We cannot understand the feeling which drove Catherine, even as a girl, to rejoice in sufferings that she inflicted on herself, but we can appreciate the spirit of devotion to what she thought her duty which led her into so many strange and difficult paths. It is a singular story, and one in which it is very hard to distinguish between what was actually true and what was legendary, but we do know that this girl whom history has called St. Catherine of Siena grew to be a heroic woman, an angel of mercy to the sick and suffering of her day and an inspiration to nobler living in that bitter and warlike age.

II
Joan of Arc
The Girl of Domremy: 1412-1431

A girl of thirteen, dark-haired, dark-eyed, clad in a simple gown of white caught at the waist by a yellow girdle, sat listening to a small boy who, stretched at her feet, was trying to make music on a willow pipe. A sunny valley lay rolled out before her, and near at hand a dozen well-fed cows were lazily chewing grass. The girl's seat was a moss-covered stone, about her were clumps of flaming red poppies and farther away was a sea of sky-blue corn-flowers. She herself was burned by the sun until her face and hands were a rich orange brown.

The boy threw down his pipe of willow. "'Tis broken, Joan, split at the side. I know a better willow tree by the Meuse. I'll cut some wands there come Sunday, and make thee a pipe will play a rare farandole like the minstrels used to play at Domremy Fair."

"Father says there'll be no more fairs in Domremy, Philippe. He says we're all like to lose our homes these days. He says the English are surely coming for us, and we'll be driven out of France into the sea."

Philippe sat up and crossing his legs rested his elbows on his knees. His round blue eyes were very serious. "The curé says the English are devils, Joan. He crosses himself when they are but named to him, and I heard him tell my mother she should pray to the holy statue of Saint Margaret in the church and offer her a full quarter of her spinning that I fall not in their hands."

"My sister Catherine says they have heads like savage beasts; and she is twenty and old enough to know," said Joan.

The boy flipped a bold grasshopper from his knee and leaned closer towards the girl.

"'Tis only Saint Michael can defeat them, Joan," he said in a half whisper. "I saw his picture on a shield the other night, and father says 'twas he who drove the English from his mount in Normandy, the one they call the Mount at Peril of the Sea."

The girl nodded her head. "I dream of Saint Michael, all clad in shining silver, some fast days, Philippe. He comes and looks at me, and when I wake up I can still see his eyes."

Joan had bent forward, and was gazing fixedly at the picture before her, the valley of rich meadows crossed by the sluggish waters of the river in a dozen channels, the ridge of forest-crowned hills beyond and to one side the red-tiled roofs of the little town of Domremy. "When the soldiers come again, and are like to burn our home I'll pray to good Saint Michael, Philippe. He may hear me."

"He might," agreed the boy. Then he lost interest in the saints. "When it's Jacque's turn to tend the cattle wilt thou go to that tree I know of and help me cut some pipes? I'll show thee a finch's nest close by too."

"Any day. And mayhap we'll find some rushes. Mother says she'll teach me to weave them in a mat. The floor's so cold come winter."

From the village church came the notes of the soft-voiced bell proclaiming noon. Joan rose and smoothed the creases in her simple homespun dress. "I must be going home now," said she. "I promised Catherine I'd help her with the baking. Look, the red heifer's straying. Thou'd best drive her back. Good-morrow, Philippe."

"Good-bye, Joan." The boy got to his feet and ran after the heifer who had deserted the rest of the herd. He looked back over his shoulder once and waved his hand to the girl.

Joan went slowly across the fields to the village. She was strong for her age, but a fast day, and this was one, always made her drowsy about noon. Moreover the sun was very warm and she wore no hat. She passed the scattered houses that made up the little town and went on by a lane that skirted the church and led through her father's orchard to his house. The door of the church was open and she could look in at the dim aisle and even catch a glimpse of the altar at the end with a lighted taper before it. She stopped to cross herself, then passing around the church she entered the orchard. Here the boughs of the apple and peach trees made a pattern of the sunshine on the grass. The shade was very welcome. She stopped, and leaning against one of the trees half closed her eyes.

Through her drooping lids she suddenly saw a circle of white light, whiter than sunlight, spread out on the grass between her and the church. The clear white circle widened. She opened her eyes and saw that the light was also in the air, that there was a column of it reaching up to the sky. She rubbed her eyes, thinking she must be dreaming, but the light stayed. Then slowly came into view a shining figure, appearing right out of the air but growing more and more plain until she could see it was an angel with a flaming sword, an angel clad in silver with a great halo of golden light about his head. She knew it was Saint Michael. She dropped to her knees and crossed herself many times. The angel stood silently before her, and now she saw other angels come slowly into the light and stand about Saint Michael. They all looked at her, but their lips did not move. The light was so bright now that she had to cover her eyes with her hands. She fell forward on her knees, trembling in great fear. When she dared to open her eyes again the wonderful vision had vanished, and there were only the trees and the stone wall of the church beyond.

It was some time later that Joan went into the house and joined her sister Catherine in the kitchen. She had the feeling of having been dreaming, but she was quite sure that her eyes had been wide open and that she had actually seen the miracle in the orchard. The thought of it kept her silent; she felt that she could not speak of it to other people; they would not believe her or would call her a witch. So she went about her work just as if nothing had happened, and she was kept very busy, because the family were poor peasants, and Joan was a strong, sturdy, capable girl who could do a score of useful things. Indoors she helped her mother with the spinning, the sewing, the cooking, and in keeping the small house clean; out-of-doors she worked in the fields with her brothers, gathered the harvest with the other girls of Domremy, and sometimes took her turn in watching the village cattle in the pasture lands down in the valley of the Meuse. She seemed to be quite like other girls of her age, very fond of bright dresses, always ready to dance or play, amused at a joke, but besides stronger and braver than most of the other girls, and always eager to help any one in trouble. When a child or an old woman was ill in the town it was Joan who was most apt to nurse them, to take them flowers or fruit; and when some poor wanderer begged James of Arc to shelter him over night it was Joan who would give the stranger her bed and sleep on a pile of rushes in her sister's room. Every one was fond of her, and though the other children sometimes teased her for being silent and for liking to go to church, she paid no heed to them, and was happy in her own way.

Near Domremy was a fortress called the Castle of the Island where the noble Lord of Boulemont and his family lived. The men of the village had to take turns in standing guard at the castle, but in return they could fly there for refuge in times of danger. A giant beech-tree stood near the place, and it was said that here one of the ancestors of the noble lord had met a fairy and often talked with her. On feast days the lord and his family made merry in the shade of this beech, and the village children often went there also, hung wreaths of flowers on the limbs of the fairy tree, danced about it, ate their bread and cheese and cakes under its shade, and drank the waters of a near-by fountain which were supposed to heal any one who was sick. Here the children picnicked one summer day not long after Joan had seen the vision of Saint Michael, and here Philippe brought Joan a half-dozen willow wands and cut them into pipes and whistles for her. The boys and girls ran races against each other, and Joan was so fleet-footed she could beat many of the boys, and after that they danced and then had supper and made a visit to the miraculous fountain to taste its water. By sundown they were tired and ready to go home. They all went together to the village and then scattered on their several ways. Joan, weary but happy, entered the little garden back of her father's house and sat down on a bench built against the wall. She gave a little sigh of content; the evening was beautiful and a warm wind blew across the valley from the west.

As she sat there resting she thought she caught the sound of voices. They did not come from the house, but seemed to be borne to her on the soft breeze. Much surprised she sat up straight. Then came into shape again before her eyes the faint but clear image of Saint Michael, only a little distance from her in the garden. His eyes seemed to rest fixedly on hers. He grew so distinct she could see the joints in his silver armor and that his lips moved. She slid from the bench to her knees and bent her head. Some power outside herself made her look up. Two figures stood with Saint Michael now, one on each side, and she knew they were Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret.

Again Joan heard the voice, but now she knew it was Saint Michael who was speaking to her. He told her the kingdom of France lay in his care, that the king of France and all his people were in danger, and that she must prepare herself to go to her king's aid, for it was through her that France was to be delivered. He bade her be not afraid but prepare herself for the great work she was to do, and told her that the two saints there with him would be near her always and would direct and strengthen her. He ceased speaking, and slowly the three figures faded into air, and she heard only the whisper of the west wind in the trees.

She rose from the grass and slowly went indoors. All that evening she moved about her home in a trance, feeling she had a great secret she could share with no one, yet one which she could never forget.

A night or two later the village priest came for a chat with James of Arc. The two men talked of the war, and of the French and English kings. Joan sat by the window listening. Finally she heard her father say, "These be bad days; what with a weak king and the greedy English we French folk are like so many cattle waiting for the slaughter."

"Jesu have pity on us!" said the priest. "There is a prophecy made long syne by some holy man that our France shall be ruined by a woman and then be safe restored by a maid from the borders of Lorraine. We know the woman, King Charles' mother, Madame Isabeau of Bavaria herself; but where is the maid? God grant she come soon!"

There seemed to be silence in the room, but Joan heard a voice speaking to her. "Thou art the maid," said the voice. "Thou wast born to save this land of France."

The summer passed and winter came to Lorraine. Outwardly Joan of Arc was like the other girls of Domremy. She helped her mother indoors and her father in the fields, she went to mass and confession and she learned as much as her friends did of the troubles of her country. But more and more often the voices spoke to her, when she was watching the cattle in the pasture, or visiting the little chapel on the hillside, or sewing in her room at home. They would come to her without warning, but always when she was alone, and they told her again and again that she was to save France, but they did not yet tell her how she was to do it. Sometimes she saw the visions of the saints themselves, but more often only heard their voices, and in time they grew so familiar to her that she no longer trembled at the sound.

In the summer when Joan was sixteen the English and the soldiers of Burgundy swept down on Lorraine, and the people of Domremy, peasant folk who were always at the mercy of the troopers, left their homes and drove their cattle seven miles southward to the walled town of Neufchâteau. Joan, now a tall strong girl, pretty with her black hair and eyes and sunburned cheeks, went with her family and found a home in the walled city with a woman named La Rousse. Here, safe within the walls, she helped the other girls in tending the animals and caring for the housework. She heard wild tales of the terrible things the enemy's soldiers were doing in the country, and she prayed that her family and friends might not fall into their hands. Again Saint Michael appeared to her, and now he told her that the time was not far distant when she must set forth on her sacred mission.

The enemy's soldiers soon left that part of the country and James of Arc and his neighbors were able to return to Domremy. They found the village burned, the church a pile of ruins, only the stone walls of their houses standing, the crops destroyed, their goods carried away. They still had their cattle, and they set to work to build new roofs for their homes and go on with their work. For the first time the children saw what war meant. Joan found the orchard where she had seen her first vision laid waste, and beyond it the blackened stones of what had been the church. She understood that what had happened there was happening all over France and began to realize that God had called her to the wonderful work of saving her countrymen. The voices spoke again, and now they began to tell her exactly what it was that she must do.

Joan was now nearly seventeen, and Philippe, her old friend, was much in love with her and asked her to marry him. She was very fond of him, and liked him much better than she did any of the other youths of Domremy, but the voices told her that she must not marry, but must give all her thoughts to the great work which had been set her. Philippe entreated her to change her mind, but she would not. Little by little now she spoke to him and to her other friends of the messages Saint Michael and the other saints had sent her.

In the autumn of 1428 the fate of France seemed trembling in the balance, bound up with the fate of the city of Orleans. The English army had just laid siege to that city, and if Orleans fell France was lost. The sovereign of France, Charles VII, was a weakling, and in the eyes of many French people not really their king, but only the heir to the throne, or Dauphin as he was called, because he had not yet been crowned and consecrated as king at the old city of Rheims. Rheims was in the hands of the English, but it must be taken from them, and Charles the Dauphin must be crowned and anointed there if he was to be King of France. One autumn day in 1428 the voices spoke again to the peasant maid of Domremy and gave her two commands; first to save Orleans from the English, and second to lead the Dauphin to Rheims and have him crowned king there.

Naturally the tasks seemed impossible to Joan; she pleaded that she could not ride, knew nothing of war, and had never been out of the valley of the Meuse. The voices told her that she would be guided safely, and that first she must go to the village of Vaucouleurs and ask the captain, Robert of Baudricourt, for an escort to take her to the Dauphin. Moreover, she must not delay; she must save the city of Orleans.

Her chance to start came almost at once. A cousin of hers who lived near Vaucouleurs fell sick, and Joan offered to nurse her. At the cousin's house Joan told the husband that she was commanded to raise the siege of Orleans and asked him to take her to Robert of Baudricourt. The simple peasant was amazed and at first would not believe her, but she was so earnest and spoke so positively of the commands given her that finally he yielded and agreed to take her to the captain in Vaucouleurs.

A little later Joan and the peasant appeared before Robert of Baudricourt. The captain saw a common farmer and a strong, dark, pretty girl dressed in coarse red stuff like any ordinary peasant maid. Joan told him he must send her with an escort to the Dauphin. The captain laughed loudly and bade her go home and tend the cattle. She protested, but he only scoffed at her talk of her mission.

Joan, however, did not go home, but stayed in the town, and told those she met that she must go to the Dauphin because she was the maid who was to save France. She seemed an honest, gentle girl, and one by one people began to take an interest in her story and wonder if it could be true. One day a roystering soldier named John of Metz stopped at the house where she lived, and asked for her, thinking to make fun of her. "What are you doing here?" he demanded when she came to the door. "I have come," said Joan, "to a royal city to tell Robert of Baudricourt to send me to the Dauphin, but he cares not for me or for my words. Nevertheless, before mid-Lent, I must be with the Dauphin, though I have to wear my legs down to my knees. No one in the world, neither kings, nor dukes, nor king of Scotland's daughter, nor any one else can recover the kingdom of France without help from me, though I would rather spin by my mother's side, since this is not my calling. But I must go and do this work, for my Lord wishes me to do it." "Who is your Lord?" asked the soldier in surprise. "God," said Joan. The man was so much impressed by her words that he said he would take her to the Dauphin himself. He asked her when she wished to start. "Rather now than to-morrow, rather to-morrow than afterwards," Joan answered.

But even with the aid of this soldier and of the friends she had made who believed in her it was some time before Joan could persuade the captain to give her an escort. At last she told him of the visions and the voices and finally he let himself be persuaded. He gave her the men she wanted and she made ready to start on her journey to the Dauphin. She decided she had better dress as a young man, and her friends bought her the clothes she needed and a horse. She rode out of Vaucouleurs clad in the black vest and hose, and gray cloak of a squire, booted and spurred, with a sword at her side and her hair cut short and round, saucer fashion, as was the style. Six armed men went with her. She did not want to go, she longed to return to her mother and the simple folk of Domremy, but the voices kept saying over and over, "Go, Child of God, go forth to save France."

The Dauphin was at the castle of Chinon in Touraine. There Joan went, and begged him to listen to her. The news of the peasant girl who thought she was to rescue the land had already come to him and he was curious about her. He granted her an interview, but thinking to test her, hid himself among a group of courtiers. As she entered the room the voices told her which was Charles and she went straight to him. She dropped upon her knee before him. "Gentle Dauphin," she said, "I have come to you on a message from God, to bring help to you and to your kingdom." Then in answer to his questions, she told him how she had been directed to lead his army to the aid of Orleans.

The Dauphin was impressed, and bade her be cared for at the castle. Again she had to wait, but now the story of her visions and the prophecy that a peasant maid of Lorraine should save France had spread abroad and people began to put their faith in her. The common people were the first to be convinced, because they were by nature superstitious and found no difficulty in believing the marvelous stories that now began to be told about Joan; after them the captains and the soldiers were willing at least to pretend to believe in her because she would lead them against their enemies; and finally Charles VII himself, weak and disappointed king as he was, decided that Joan could at least do his cause no harm, and might do it good, and so gave his consent to her requests.

In a very short time then the simple girl of Domremy, only seventeen years old, was put at the head of the French army and rode north to raise the siege of Orleans. Clad in full armor, astride a white charger, sword at her side, she carried a banner which had been described to her by the mystic voices. The field of the banner was sown with the lilies of France, in the centre was painted God holding the world and on each side knelt an angel. The motto was "Jesus Maria." With this banner floating above her she rode to Orleans, and all the country people who saw her pass told their neighbors the old prophecy had come true.

By great good fortune Joan's army was able to enter the city of Orleans. There the warrior-maid was received with the utmost reverence, greeted as a deliverer sent by God, and hope revived in the people's hearts. She waited a short time, and then taking counsel with her generals planned an attack on the English outside the walls. Again fortune stood by her, the French were victorious, and the enemy were forced to retreat and so raise the siege.

Joan's first task was done. After an interval she set out upon the second, to crown the Dauphin in the city of Rheims. This meant a march through a part of France held by the enemy and the capture of many cities. Joan and her army accomplished the work, however, and the day came when Charles the Dauphin and the Maid of Orleans, as she was now called, entered the great cathedral of Rheims, and Joan heard her prince consecrated and proclaimed King of France. She had given her country new hope and strength and a king to look to.

Joan had now completed the two tasks for which she had left Domremy; her voices had spoken truly to her and she had done what they had commanded. She wanted to go home, enter her father's house again, and remain a peasant girl like her friends and share their simple life. But she had become too wonderful in the eyes of France for the people to let her do as she wished. They begged her to do more, and so she was persuaded to keep with the royal army and wage battle after battle with the English. For a time victory stayed with her, but finally one day at Compiègne she was cut off from her men by the enemy, surrounded and taken prisoner. The rest of her history is briefly told. She was put in prison at Rouen, tried for witchcraft, condemned and burned at the stake in 1431, when she was nineteen years old.

So it was that the peasant girl stirred France to hope by her wonderful deeds, and gave her life at the end for her country's sake. France made her a national heroine, the Catholic Church proclaimed her a Saint, and in all history there is hardly to be found so marvelous a story as that of the simple girl of Domremy, Joan of Arc, called the Maid of France.

III
Vittoria Colonna
The Girl of Ischia: 1490-1547

Vines had woven the walls of a little natural bower on a high cliff of the wooded, sea-swept island of Ischia off the coast of Italy. Beyond lay the bay of Naples, a deep blue glimmering with specks of gold, and still farther off stretched the white and brown and yellow roofs and walls of that sun-loved city. It was late afternoon, the hour of all the four and twenty when the city and the sea were most alluring to the eye. In the bower sat a woman and a golden-haired girl, and each was watching the colors shift and deepen in the broad breeze-touched bay.

"Is there anything else as lovely, Isabella?" asked the girl in time. "See yon handful of opals just tossed on the waves off Capua. How still it is! The woods have gone to sleep."

The woman smiled. "Peace to their slumbers. Yonder poor town of Naples has little time to rest! What with France and Spain, the Holy Father and the rest of them, the poor folk of Naples can scarce call their souls their own."

"Indeed 'tis like looking down from a nest upon a stormy plain," agreed the girl. "Here at least are few plottings and struggles."

She settled more comfortably, her head resting in the palm of her hand. Then, after a moment, she sat up again and, turning to her companion, laid a finger to her lips. Close to them, the other side of the network of wild vines, was the sound of footsteps and presently of voices.

"To the west, beyond this cliff, lies a beach," she heard a man's voice say, "where the Marquis Ferdinand and his teacher come to swim each day at this hour. We can hide in the bushes back of the shore and take them unarmed. The Orsini have offered an hundred ducats for the boy."

There followed a chuckle, and then another voice added: "'Tis an easy way to line my purse again."

"Softly then, softly," cautioned the first speaker, and crackling twigs marked their stealthy descent towards the sheltered beach.

The girl, alarm in her eyes, sat up straight. As soon as the crackling ceased she bent forward. "Didst hear, Isabella?" she whispered. "Didst hear yon plot? They wait for Ferdinand and Messer Florio to bathe beneath the cliff and then set on them. An hundred ducats the Orsini pay. What can we do to warn them?"

But Isabella's wits seemed flown away. She sat silent, rocking from side to side, her face suddenly quite white.

"Think, Isabella, think; what shall we do? We can't let them have Ferdinand without a warning. 'Tis almost time that his boat came alongshore. He bathes at sunset and the sun is nearly gone. Speak, Isabella, speak."

The girl put her hand on the woman's arm and shook her. The only reply was a moan and a whispered, "Oh, Vittoria, what will our dear lady the Duchess say?"

"She will say we were cowards for one thing, and she will be right," said the girl. "Many a time have I heard my father say, 'There's nothing the Orsini want but the Colonna will snatch away from them.' They shan't have Ferdinand. Tell your beads here on the cliff an you will; I'm going down over its edge to the beach."

She stood up, tall and slender in her white gown, her fair hair falling to her shoulders, and looked out across the bay. "There, he is coming now," she exclaimed, pointing eastward to where a white sail was skimming the sparkling waves. "If they take Ferdinand they take Vittoria Colonna too."

"But the Duchess——" began the frightened Isabella. "She bade me never leave thee. If I go home alone——"

"Stop!" ordered the girl. "Thou knowest the safety of Ferdinand is of more value than all the womenfolk in Ischia. The boat is almost here."

She stepped to the edge of the cliff where the vines were thickest and tested them with her feet. Then, searching carefully for that ladder of knotted branches which seemed to promise the securest hold she stepped over the edge and slid her feet from one rung of the vine-ladder to another while she clung to the roots with her hands. Far below the waves murmured against the rocks and lapped at the silver half-moon of the sandy beach.

Fortunately the cliff was shelving and in places a path was worn where boys had hunted for sea-birds' nests. Vittoria was strong and she kept her hold upon one vine until she had found another quite as safe. Slowly she crept downward, stopping now and again to look out for the sailboat which was steadily crossing towards the little beach. She figured that it would pass beneath her just as she should reach a certain jutting ledge of rock. The wind was rising and she had to hasten. She twisted her fingers tightly about a vine and loosed her footing. So she slipped down and stood, out of breath and with her hair and dress disheveled, on the ledge. Putting her hands to her mouth she sent a hailing cry across the water.

The man and boy on the skiff looked up and saw the white-clad figure of the girl above them on the ledge. "It's Vittoria!" cried the boy. "She has some message for us, Florio. Send the boat in beneath the cliff."

The man nodded and swung the tiller over so that the light cockle-shell skiff danced over the water to Vittoria's ledge. As they neared it the boy, a handsome, curly-haired, sunburned lad of fifteen, caught at the matting of heavy vines which hung almost to the water's edge while the man dropped the little sail.

"What is it, Vittoria?" asked the boy. "Messer Florio and I were going for our swim."

"Not to-day, Ferdinand," she answered. "I have word for thee. Wilt catch me if I climb down?"

"Aye, that I will."

Holding again by the vines and slipping her feet from rung to rung Vittoria left her ledge and was soon near enough for Ferdinand to catch her in his arms. Messer Florio steadied the boat against the rock while the boy swung Vittoria across the gunwale.

"Now set your sail back towards home," she commanded.

"Why, Vittoria?"

"Isabella and I were on the cliff but now," she exclaimed, her eyes sparkling, "when we heard two men plan how they should hide behind the trees of the beach and seize upon you both when you were unarmed. One said the Orsini would pay an hundred ducats for Ferdinand. They are down there waiting now."

Messer Florio's swart face paled and the boy frowned. "So even in Ischia there is danger from those wolves, is there?" said he. "Oh, wait until I am a man, and can draw their fangs for them."

"Aye, wait, Ferdinand. Meantime let us be sailing towards home."

"Truly, the Lady Vittoria speaks wisely," said Messer Florio, glancing up at the cliff as though fearful that their enemies might even yet be in position to harm them from above. "Take my place, Ferdinand, while I work the bow out to sea again."

The boy obeyed, and between them they soon had the skiff tacking out from shore, her nose pointing over towards Capua.

"Poor Isabella," said Vittoria after a time. "I think she was too fearful even to speak. We must send a guard to bring her in by dusk."

"'Tis well one of you had courage to give the warning," said Florio. "'Twas a climb few girls would care to risk to my thinking."

"Needs must when the devil drives," answered Vittoria with a laugh. "I could not see them steal my husband from before my very eyes. Moreover when have the Orsini ever had the better of a true Colonna?"

So Ferdinand the boy Marquis of Pescara and Florio his tutor sang the praises of the little Lady Vittoria Colonna until they had rounded the rugged cliffs of Ischia and sailed into safe harbor. Above the landing-place stood the great fortress-castle where lived Costanza d' Avalos, Duchess of Francavilla, and châtelaine of this island rock of Ischia. Florio gave a sigh of relief as he saw Ferdinand and Vittoria step on shore. He knew the robbers would have made short shrift of him if they could have placed their hands on the young Lord of Pescara.

In those days the great Roman families of Colonna and Orsini were always at swords' points. Each had had many cardinals, statesmen, and warriors, and each strove its hardest to despoil the other. Vittoria, the youngest daughter of Fabrizio Colonna, had been born in 1490 in the Castle of Marino, which guarded one of the passes in the Alban hills near Rome. But such a castle was no place for children, for the lords of Marino and the other mountain strongholds lived like robber barons, swooping down on neighboring towns and cities, holding travelers to ransom, and attacking and destroying one another's homes on any favoring chance. The Lord Fabrizio Colonna and his wife Agnes were anxious to place their daughter in safer hands, and at the same time it happened that Ferdinand II, King of Sicily and Naples, was desirous of uniting the powerful Colonna family to his cause by marrying a girl of that house to a boy of his own race. So at five years of age Vittoria was solemnly betrothed to Ferdinand, Marquis of Pescara, and went to live in the sheltered island of Ischia in the Bay of Naples, under the care of the Duchess of Francavilla, the older sister of the young Marquis Ferdinand. Here the boy and girl were brought up together, studying under the same teachers, playing the same games, while the careful Duchess kept vigilant watch and ward over both, for nothing would have pleased the lords of the house of Orsini better than to prevent the marriage of a Colonna to a boy of such rank and wealth. Even in Ischia, protected by nature as it was and guarded by the Duchess' soldiers, spies sometimes appeared, and neither Vittoria nor Ferdinand were strangers to perils at the hands of enemies of their houses.

For the most part, however, Ischia was quiet and the boy and girl led happy, peaceful lives. Ferdinand was trained to be a soldier, but also learned something of letters and art. A taste for poetry was considered fashionable among young noblemen of that period and he was brought up in the fashion. Vittoria showed an unusual love of literature, and the Duchess, finding her young ward eager to learn, trained her in Latin and Greek and urged her to write verses of her own.

Ferdinand grew tall and strong, fit for the work of a soldier, gentle at most times, but fiery when his anger was aroused. He was considered remarkably handsome, with an auburn beard, an aquiline nose, and eyes keen and commanding. Vittoria, while she was still a girl, was regarded as one of the beauties of Italy, her face being of the calm oval Roman type, with the broad brow, the thoughtful eyes, and the full red lips. Poets sang the praises of her golden hair and artists loved to paint it, and the fame of its beauty had spread to Rome and Naples through the words of wandering troubadours who had been to Ischia.

When Vittoria Colonna and Ferdinand d'Avalos were nineteen years old they were married, and it was a true love-match, for they had grown more and more fond of each other during the years they had spent on the island. The wedding was almost royal in its magnificence, and then bride and groom went to Naples, where endless feasts were given in their honor. They traveled a little and then went back to Ischia, where for three years Ferdinand and Vittoria were very happy, and where she began to write some of those sonnets which were to win her fame.

Then came the call to war, and Ferdinand left Vittoria at Ischia to hasten to the aid of his king who was warring with Louis XII of France.

From that time the life of Vittoria's husband was spent in camps and battles. He was unusually brave, a man beloved by his soldiers, and as a general there were few men of the age his equal. Now he was winning, now losing, at one time in prison at Milan writing letters in poetry to his wife to which she replied with poems of her own. He was wounded at the great battle of Pavia, and a little later, worn out by his hard warring life, died in 1525.

Vittoria stayed at Ischia, and to ease her grief for her loved husband wrote many sonnets dealing with their life together. Her poems were considered very beautiful and her fame grew until she was accounted among the greatest of Italian writers. After a time she traveled and everywhere she was received with the highest honors as a poetess. At last she settled in Rome, and there her house was the centre of learning in the city. All men of talent claimed to be her friends, and the letters of the day were filled with accounts of her genius, her holiness, and her beauty. Chief among her friends was the great painter Michael Angelo, and the friendship of each was a continual inspiration to the genius of the other.

So it was that this girl who saved her betrothed husband from his enemies that day at Ischia became in time one of the noblest figures in Italian life, one of the finest flowers of what we call the Renaissance in Europe.

IV
Catherine de' Medici
The Girl of Mediæval Italy: 1519-1589

A stone bench with arms carved to represent crouching lions stood under an ilex tree in a corner of the Medici gardens in Florence. There, on a certain autumn afternoon, sat two girls, talking languidly, for the day was hot. Both were dark, but one looked much like a hundred other girls to be met in the streets of Florence, the other was striking. Her long, oval face was very pale, and seemed the more colorless in contrast with the black hair which she wore low on her forehead and over the tips of her ears. Her lips were thin and straight, and her eyelids made her eyes look long and narrow, almost like two slits from which gleamed a singularly bright or a dull light, depending on whether she were interested or indifferent. Delicate black brows were penciled above those eyes. She was handsome, but one might also judge that she was crafty.

Just now she was admiring the glitter of a ruby in a ring upon her hand. "How much it looks like a drop of blood," she was saying. "Hast thou ever seen one of those rings, Bianca, with a little hidden place to carry poison? My uncle Filippo has one. The Duke's goldsmith made it for him."

"I hate all such things," said Bianca. "If I had such a ring I'd throw it into the Arno."

"Nevertheless they are useful sometimes. My uncle and the Duke are playing at being friends now, but thou knowest that to-morrow they might well be at each other's throats." She smoothed a fold of the green gown on her knee. "I like my uncle, but the Duke——" she shrugged her shoulders. "I trust him no more than I would the rabble of Florence. He is kind to me now. In good faith I know there is some reason for it. 'Tis not love of me or because I am a girl of his house of the Medici."

"Softly," warned Bianca. "Here is he now coming through the garden."

There came towards them a singular group. One was a tall man, dressed in doublet and hose, with a long heavy gold chain hanging almost to his waist, and a gold girdle in which was stuck a short dagger, the handle of which glittered with precious stones. A velvet cape hung from his shoulders, and on his head perched a flat velvet cap, tilted at an angle. He bore a certain resemblance to the girl in green; he had the same cream-white skin, lustrous black hair, and narrow, searching eyes. Beside him came a dwarf, dressed in parti-colored brown and gold. He had to take two little hopping steps to every long stride of the man with him. On the other side of the Duke stalked a big greyhound, a certain stately grace in every movement. He stood so high that the Duke could pat his head and pull his long ears without stooping.

The girls rose and courtesied as the others reached them. The Duke, with a smile in his black eyes, waved his hand for them to be seated. "'Tis pleasant here in thy little nook, Catherine," said he. "This work over state affairs in my cabinet makes my head buzz as if 'twere a hive of angry bees."

"What honeyed thoughts must be yours, my lord," observed the dwarf.

"Honeyed indeed, since they were of my fair Catherine," answered his master. "Lie down in the shade, good lad, and rest thy overworked wits. I would have a talk with my dear niece if she will give me room upon her bench."

Catherine moved, and the Duke sat down. Bianca rose, but the Duke bade her stay. "I have no secrets from Catherine's friends," said he.

"Thou knowest well, little lady," he began, "that we of the Medici have had our ups and downs. Young as thou art thou hast not escaped them. Recall those days when thou wert at the convent, and we were striving to retake Florence from the barbarous chiefs of the Republic. Did not Battista Cei—wretched man! propose that thou shouldst be set out between two battlements where the artillery fire would sweep across thee?"

"I remember well," said Catherine, her eyes gleaming as she spoke.

"And later, did not Castiglione advise that rather than hand thee over to the care of our Holy Father the Pope thou shouldst be given to the soft mercy of the mercenary soldiers?"

"That I remember also," said Catherine. "Though I was only nine I shall never forget those days."

"I only recall them," continued the Duke, "that thou mayst consider how uncertain is the life of a Medici, and may understand with what care I have looked to thy welfare. Thou art dear to me as my own daughter, and as a daughter have I planned for thee. Now for my news. I have arranged to marry thee to a son of the French King!"

He looked for some surprise on Catherine's part, but she showed none. She gazed straight ahead of her, her eyelids drooping a little over her eyes.

"The French King has two sons, the Dauphin and Prince Henry. Which am I to marry?" she asked quietly.

The Duke crossed one knee upon the other. "I cannot tell thee yet," he answered. "The Dauphin for preference, but Henry if need be. The King has raised objections to the first, but a house like ours, which has given two Popes to Christendom, might well provide a Queen for the throne of France. One or the other it will be."

Catherine bent her head. "I trust thou hast always found me dutiful," said she, "and wilt in this."

The Duke, his white fingers playing with the chain about his neck, eyed the girl closely. "Thou art a curious maiden, Catherine," he observed slowly. "I tell thee that thou art to marry a Valois and go to Paris and thou showest as much excitement as if I said the wind had veered a quarter. Is it nothing to thee to marry and leave thy home?"

Catherine smiled, her eyes bent on the greyhound which lay crouched at her feet. "Good my lord," she answered, "I have known ever since I was old enough to think of such things that some day thou or some other of my kinsmen would come to me and say, 'Catherine, thou art to marry such and such a prince.' To me they are all alike, dressed of a piece. I know not even if they be comely or no, but only that such a one is Heir of France and such is Prince of Savoy. I am ready to live in Paris or in Milan as it suits my kinsmen. As for leaving home thou hast said thyself that my days here have been somewhat hazardous. I have no reason to love these Florentine gentlemen overmuch."

"True," agreed the Duke. "Thou sayest wisely, surprising wisely for a maid thy years. If I mistake not thou wilt play this game of statecraft shrewdly, with an eye ever to the stakes and little concern for the other players. It is well, the Medici have never played the fool. One word more. Shortly thou and I and thy good uncle Filippo Strozzi must leave for Leghorn, there to meet the Pope and the envoys of the King of France, and sign the marriage papers. I am right glad that Filippo will go. He will safeguard thee as carefully as I. Now must I take my leave. May thy dreams be sweet, savored with the thought that some day thou mayst be Queen in France." He rose and poked the dwarf with his toe. "Come, good jester, much sleep maketh the wits dull."

"Then should mine be sharp," answered the dwarf, springing up. "He who serves the Medici sleeps with one eye open."

"And so he must," agreed the Duke with a laugh. He called to the dog and the three went back across the lawn as they had come.

Only when they were out of sight did Catherine speak. "He is a smooth-tongued man in very truth, Bianca," said she. "He talks about the care he takes of me, the thought he spends in planning for my marriage. He would sell me to-morrow to the highest bidder. If I marry one of the French princes 'tis so that he may count on France's aid to help him here in Italy. And he is glad that Uncle Filippo will go to Leghorn with me. He's glad forsooth because my uncle is the most popular man in Florence, and could upset the Duke in a twinkling had he the mind to do so. His head will rest the easier with me in Paris and the Strozzi out of Florence. Oh, a very gentle kinsman is my lord Duke."

"Thou mayst not do him justice, Catherine," urged Bianca.

"Justice?" Catherine's eyes narrowed and a gleam shot into them. "I may be young, Bianca, but I am no fool. I cannot speak for other countries, but here in Italy one should trust no one else. Each has some plan in mind, and given the chance will stop at nothing to have his way with things. Hark you now." The girl lowered her voice to a whisper. "Thou knowest Messer Lorenzino de' Medici, Duke Alessandro's closest friend and counselor? Were I the Duke, Lorenzino would leave Florence for his health and never return. Twice have I come upon him when he thought he was alone and each time there was a dark brooding look upon his face. He has some purpose in his friendliness. What if some evening when the Duke walks forth alone, let us say strolls on the other side this ilex where the poplars are a screen, a man glides from the shadow? A glint of steel, and Duke Alessandro is no more. The Florentines are glad, and Lorenzino reaps rewards. He has done a public service. 'Tis so easy, so very easy."

"Be still, Catherine. What thoughts thou hast! 'Tis enough to make one shudder."

The gleam in Catherine's eyes disappeared, and she was the same quiet indifferent girl she had been before. "I only said how easy. I only thought the Duke should be more careful of his friends."

"But even to think such things is dangerous, Catherine," protested the nervous Bianca.

"No, thoughts have killed no one," answered Catherine, with a shrewd smile. "Else there had been no one left alive by now."

"I will not talk with thee when thou art so cruel-minded, Catherine," and Bianca rose from the stone seat.

"'Tis not I. 'Tis the great world about me, the men and women of all the Christian courts. Howbeit 'tis time we went indoors. I must plan preparation for this journey to Leghorn the Duke told me of."

She rose also, and moved across the lawn by the side of her friend with a sinuous grace which was remarkable in a girl so young as she. However, as those in the Medici Palace often observed, the Lady Catherine, styled the Princess of Florence, was old for her age in more ways than one.

Catherine de' Medici
From an old engraving

Probably this was to have been expected. Catherine had lost her father and mother very shortly after she was born. Her father was Lorenzo de' Medici, and her mother Madeleine de la Tour d'Auvergne before her marriage. Her father had been the head of his family in Florence and the real ruler there, although the Florentines were so jealous of what they considered their independence that he had never dared proclaim himself lord of the city and used the title of Duke of Urbino. Even so after Lorenzo's death the Medici had been driven from Florence and had had to fight desperately to retake it. At that time the leaders of the republic in the city had shut Catherine, who was only nine years old, in a convent, and had discussed the best way in which to be rid of her, as the Duke had so thoughtfully reminded her. When the Medici finally took possession of the city again Alessandro was the head of the family and became Tyrant of Florence, calling himself Duke of the City of Penna. He released Catherine from the convent and adopted her into his own family, giving her the title of Princess of Florence. Catherine, although she was only fourteen, had seen enough of the men of her family to distrust them almost as much as she did the people of the city. On all sides she had found treachery and deceit and greed for power, and if she was overwise for her years in such matters, it was because she had been brought up to see little else.

One man alone she trusted, her uncle Filippo Strozzi, who had married her father's sister, and who was now the most popular man in Florence. The Duke would have liked to be rid of this man by any means he could, but he did not dare deal with him in an underhand way, and so decided to send him to accompany Catherine to Leghorn, hoping that he might be induced later to go with his niece to France and keep away from Florence. Catherine had judged rightly when she said the Duke had laid his plans for her marriage more for his own protection than for her welfare.

Early in October, 1533, the Duke Alessandro, Filippo Strozzi, and Catherine left Florence for Leghorn. In order to dazzle the French court the Duke had arranged a remarkable suite to accompany the young Princess. The entire procession consisted of more than a thousand persons, and when the rear-guard were still leaving the gate of Florence those in the lead had already passed the first village outside the city.

Although Duke Alessandro was head of the house of Medici in Florence the Pope, Clement VII, was head of that house in Italy, and he had decided that he also would go to Leghorn and take a hand in the wedding plans of the Lady Catherine. Like all the powerful princes of that day both Pope Clement and Duke Alessandro wished to dazzle the rest of the world with their magnificence, and Catherine must have been surprised at the sights she saw in Leghorn. The Pope had arrived by sea, and his private galley was hung with crimson satin trimmed with golden fringe, and covered with an awning of cloth of gold. This same barge had been fitted with a suite of rooms for Catherine herself, and here were gathered priceless works of art and scores of curious treasures which had been sent to the Pope from distant countries. The oarsmen and the sailors were all magnificently dressed, and three more barges were filled with the officers and servants of His Holiness. Near the Papal galleys were moored the barges of the envoys of the French King, headed by the Duke of Albany, and so the harbor was filled with splendid vessels, while on shore Duke Alessandro did his best to amaze the simple people of Leghorn with the wealth and magnificence of the Lords of Florence.

There followed many meetings between the Pope and the Duke and the French envoys. It was settled that Catherine's marriage dowry should amount to a hundred thousand ducats, a very large sum of money for even such a rich house as that of the Medici to pay. Then the question arose as to which of the French princes she was to marry, whether the Dauphin or Henry, Duke of Orleans. The Pope and the Duke urged that she be married to the Dauphin, but the French King would not consent, and finally the two Medici princes realized that they had better take the younger son while they could get him, and agreed that Catherine should marry Henry. But by this time they were so much afraid that the French King Francis I would try to break his agreement with them that they insisted on an immediate wedding for Catherine and journeyed on to the city of Marseilles in order that it might take place at once.

If the Pope and the Duke were fond of gorgeous display, Francis I was even more so. Although he had given many splendid entertainments before, he outdid himself on this occasion. The wedding feasts for Henry and Catherine lasted thirty-four days, and during all that time the Pope and the King witnessed tournaments and sham sea-battles, listened to music and to the poems of the troubadours, and met at the banquet-table to eat and drink and make merry half the night. So Catherine, just fifteen years old, was married to Henry, who was three weeks older.

Catherine's opinion of the treachery and deceit of the people of her time was quite correct. She had told Bianca only what was the truth, for in mediæval Italy every one in high place was a conspirator and the men of her own family were the worst. The Pope and the Duke had wanted to marry Catherine to the Dauphin so that she might some day be Queen of France. They found they could not do this, and must take the second son. History does not tell what plots were hatched on that golden barge off Leghorn, but history does state that only a very short time after the wedding the Dauphin died, and that it was generally believed that he had been poisoned. He had been taking part in some athletic games at Tournon on a hot day in August, and when he stopped, being very warm, he asked for a glass of water. It was given to him iced, and a short time later he died. The man who gave him the glass had been one of those who were with Duke Alessandro at Leghorn. Thus, whether by their own devices or by chance, the heads of the house of Medici saw their little Lady Catherine the wife of the heir to the French throne.

Catherine was shrewd, and she studied the people about her in France with the same skill that she had shown in Florence. She saw that she must win the affection of the king if she were to escape suspicion of taking part in the many plots that were made against him. So she stayed close beside him whenever she could, and was always ready to do whatever he might suggest, until very shortly Francis found himself exceedingly fond of this quiet, willing little daughter-in-law who seemed to admire him so much. She studied Henry and found him vain and pleasure-loving above everything else, and so she let him go his own way, interfering with nothing that he wished to do, but waiting until she might have the chance to win some power over him. And she studied the courtiers, men and women, so that she might be able to play them like pawns at chess, one against another, when the day should come on which she should be Queen of France.

As she waited she saw cunning and deceit win one victory after another in Italy and France. She heard how the brooding Lorenzino de' Medici, even as she had predicted to Bianca, had become Duke Alessandro's closest friend and greatest flatterer in order to find the chance to strike and kill him, and she heard how the people of Florence had proclaimed Lorenzino a patriot for ridding them of the Duke, and how her uncle Filippo Strozzi, one of the noblest men of the time, had vowed that he admired the assassin so much that each of his sons should marry one of Lorenzino's daughters.

Catherine became a most powerful woman, but powerful through fear. She had learned the lesson of her childhood well. She was a Medici, and therefore overweeningly ambitious, and she was as scheming, as clever, and as cruel as any of her famous family. Her husband, Henry, became King of France, and was killed in a tournament. Her three sons became kings of France in turn, and during all their reigns she was the power behind the throne. During all her life the court of France was a cobweb of intrigue, in which no one was safe, and a man or woman became powerful only to be secretly put out of the way lest he or she should grow too strong. She was beyond doubt one of the ablest women in French history and she might have done much to make France great and respected, but instead she almost ruined it by her selfish ambitions. History lays at Catherine's door the killing of innocent Huguenots in all parts of France, known as the Massacre of Saint Bartholomew's Eve. With all her gifts she could not rise above the teachings of her girlhood in Italy, and so she stands out as a queen of treachery and bloodshed, thoroughly typical of her age in its darker sides.

V
Lady Jane Grey
The Girl of Tudor England: 1537-1554

A little lady sat reading a small, vellum-bound book in the window-seat of one of the rooms of his Majesty's palace of Westminster. She was short and slender, and for a girl of fourteen very graceful. Her face was fair and now warm-flushed by the sun, her hair was a soft red-brown and her eyes that light shade of hazel, almost red, which so often goes with hair of reddish color. Her dress was of green velvet, with great gold-embroidered sleeves. At her waist was a girdle of gold. Her gown was cut to a point at the neck and about her throat was a little chain and a small heart-shaped locket. On her head was a coif of fine white lace bound with tiny bands of green and gold. The window behind her was open, and now and then the breeze blew wisps of hair about her forehead and sometimes threatened to turn the leaves of her book.

Presently a boy, a few years older than the girl, dressed in dark red doublet and hose, with a flat cap of the same color on his head, pushed aside the arras at the door and came into the room. He was very pale, and his big eyes, under high black arching eyebrows, looked very tired and moody. He had crossed to the window-seat before the girl knew he was in the room.

She rose quickly and made a low courtesy. The boy rested one knee upon the window-seat. "I'm glad you've come to court, Lady Jane. I wish you might stay some time."

"Your Majesty is very good to say so."

The boy bit his lip. "All day and half the night people are saying to me, 'Your Majesty is very good' to do this or that, usually something they've made me do. Can't we forget, cousin, for just a little time, that I'm Edward the Sixth, King of England and Ireland and so on, and just pretend I'm simple Edward Tudor and you Jane Grey?"

"An your Majesty wishes it," she said, smiling at the dark-eyed boy.

"I do." The boy sat down on the window-seat. "Oh, Jane, it's a stupid life I lead. Always my masters with lessons, my bearded counselors with scrolls and ink-horns. When I'm tired one man gives me physic, when I'm well again another sets me tasks. My head splits with sermons, and acts of state, and such like matters. I think they grudge me the hours I have to sleep. And among them all I've only one true friend, Barnaby Fitzpatrick, and him they let me see but now and then."

"I know," said the Lady Jane. "It seems there are so many things we must learn. At home my master, Messer Aylmer, is forever setting me this or that to study."

Lady Jane Grey and Roger Ascham

The boy leaned forward and whispered, "I wish I were a boy of the streets, with a penny in my pocket and naught to do but plan the spending of it."

"Oh, my lord—Edward, I mean," said the girl, much amazed.

The arras was pulled back again, and two youths entered. One was tall and fair, the other of much shorter stature, with merry black eyes. Both were dressed in the height of the court fashion, with plumed hats, short swords, and jeweled collars.

"Here's Barnaby," said the king, "and Lord Guildford Dudley. Oh, Barnaby, I'm free for an hour or so. What shall I do with it?"

The shorter of the two boys, drawing his heels together, made a low bow to the girl who had resumed her place on the window-seat. "My Lady Jane Grey," said he. "Welcome to our palace of Westminster. Is it not a cheerful place? But for the four of us here gathered I doubt if there be a soul within its walls under five and fifty years of age."

"My Lady Jane," said tall Guildford Dudley, making his bow in turn, "is kind to come here to relieve our dulness."

Now Edward clapped his hands impatiently. "Think, Barnaby, think. What shall we do?"

Barnaby looked out through the mullioned window. "Down there in the garden are bows and arrows. Suppose we be Robin Hood and his men and shoot at wands?"

"Good!" cried Edward. "They told me not to go out-of-doors while the sun was hot, nor walk in the garden without one of my gentlemen-at-arms. Now will I do both. Come, Jane, you shall judge among us for our skill. There's a little staircase just beyond the arras that leads into the garden."

He sprang up, his pale face flushed with the spirit of adventure, and throwing his arm over Barnaby's shoulder ran with him to the stairs.

Guildford Dudley smiled. "What say you, Lady Jane? Will you leave your book? 'Tis the royal order, you know."

"Very gladly, my lord. I was desiring something better to do." They followed the others to the staircase, and a moment later found themselves in the sunny garden.

From a flower bed Barnaby produced a rounded stick, some three feet long, and stuck it in the ground at thirty paces from a seat under a plane-tree. "Jane shall sit here and be our judge," said he, "while we three shoot at yonder wand."

The three boys chose their bows, which were quite as long as they were tall, and carefully fitted arrows to the cords. Then, standing under the tree, Edward took aim and loosed his bowstring. The arrow went very wild, clipping leaves from a yew some distance to the right.

Barnaby shot next and came nearer the wand. "My eye needs training," said he. "'Tis not near true yet."

Lord Guildford aimed carefully, and sent his shaft just over the wand's top. "Best of the three!" cried Barnaby, and the Lady Jane clapped her hands and smiled at the tall, fair-haired boy.

The second round was not very different. Edward, his arm shaking as he tried to hold the taut bow straight, shot his arrow into the ground. Barnaby missed the wand by an inch or two to the right, and Guildford grazed it, shooting very close.

Edward's third try was little better than his other two. His shaft went high and wide. He dropped his bow and threw himself on the ground at Jane's feet. "I can't do it," he complained. "'Tis idle trying. They never let me train my hand at sports."

But the other boys were adepts. Barnaby sent his third arrow right to the base of the wand so that the stick bent back, and then Guildford, taking the greatest care, let fly a shaft that hit the stick fairly and split it in two. "Well shot!" cried Barnaby. Guildford turned about, a smile on his pleasant face. "How was that, Lady Jane?"

"Splendid!" answered the girl. "If I had a prize I'd give it to you," and she made room for him to sit beside her on the bench.

Edward, his chin resting in his hand, was looking towards a gate at the rear of the garden. "I wish," he said slowly, "that we could go out into that lane and see what is happening there, just as other children do."

"Why not?" exclaimed Barnaby. "Who's to say no? Let's have a peep outside. Nobody'll be the wiser."

Edward got to his feet doubtfully, but when he saw the other three quite in earnest he laughed, and ran ahead of them to the gate. He swung it wide open and the four trooped out into the lane.

The walls of the palace grounds ran for some distance, but as soon as the children had turned a corner they came into a street of shops and small dwelling-houses where there were many people. They walked slowly, pointing things out to one another and looking curiously at the new sights about them. Finally Lady Jane spied a pedler standing in the road, with a basket at his waist hung by a rope about his neck. He was calling out in a loud voice to attract attention to his wares. "Let's see what he has," she exclaimed, running over towards him.

A number of people, attracted by the pedler's words, had already gathered near him, but the girl and the three boys stopped directly in front of him. He was a jolly-looking fellow, with a very red face, and a broad-brimmed hat, wound with an orange scarf, stuck far back on his head. "Come buy, come buy!" he called in a singsong voice. "Here are little mirrors for the ladies, fresh from the court of Paris, wherein each may see how beautiful she is and how well her kerchief suits her. And here be ribbands will set the lads' hearts aflutter, and pieces of lace made after the fashion of Mechlin. Come buy, come buy! Come, my good dame, your man will be glad to see you look so fine when he comes home." But the woman he looked at laughed and shook her head. "He keeps his eyes for the food that's awaiting him," said she.

"What ho!" cried the pedler, thrusting his hand into the pile of small articles that lay heaped in his basket. "Talking of food, here be knives, each in a leather jacket of finest Spanish make, will carve you a venison haunch or a foeman's gizzard, just as your fancy sits. Here, my fine gentlemen," said he, extending a couple of the knives towards Edward, Barnaby, and Guildford, "you should have such to cut your way into court."

"I've a knife here," said Barnaby, touching the scabbard of his short sword, "worth twenty of those bodkins."

"Hark to him!" cried the pedler. "Bodkins indeed! Why, 'twas only yestereve his Majesty ordered a dozen of them to arm his Yeomen of the Guard!" He looked at Lady Jane, noting the richness of her dress. "What will my lady have? She has taste, I warrant. A sweet dye for the hair, a ring, a love philtre, a girdle set with gems?" As he spoke he held up one thing after another, tempting the four to draw near him.

Lady Jane looked into the basket and spied in a corner a bracelet hung with curiously cut bangles. "I like that," said she, pointing it out to the others.

"Ah!" cried the pedler. "The lady has good taste! 'Tis a sweet bracelet, captured from the Moors when the great city of Granada fell. Each of these bangles has a prayer writ upon it, and 'tis said that worn upon the left arm, just above the wrist, 'twill bring good luck beyond all wishing for."

"Take it as my gift, Lady Jane," said Edward, stretching out his hand for it.

"And the price," continued the pedler, "is most monstrous low, too low in fact by half, and yet 'tis the price. A mere matter of five florins."

Edward put his hand to his belt. He had no purse with him. "'Tis a fair price," said he. "I'll have the money sent you," and again he held out his hand.

"Sent me? Oh, no, fine sir. This hour I may be here, the next in Cheapside. Who buys of me pays in hand." He looked at the other two boys smilingly. "Such a small sum, only five florins."

But as it chanced they also had no purses with them. "Never mind, Edward," said Barnaby. "Lady Jane can have a finer one another day."

"No," said Edward, frowning, "she shall have it now." He looked at the pedler. "Give me the bracelet and in twenty minutes a man shall fetch you the money. Be at the palace gate. I'll send it to you."

The pedler shook his head. "An old bird must be wary, young sir. I might wait and wait and winter come and go, but no five florins. That is my rule to all, be ye whoever ye may."

Edward, however, had the Tudor hate of all opposition. "Give me the bracelet!" he exclaimed, stamping his foot on the paving. "And trust my word for pay, or I'll see you soundly thrashed and driven out of London!"

"Oh ho!" cried the pedler. "Sits the wind so? 'Twill need a bigger man than you to do one or t'other."

"Bigger than I!" cried the boy, his face like a sudden thunder-storm. "Why, you rascal you, I'm——" But before he could speak the word Barnaby had twitched his sleeve, and whispered, "Ssh—look about you."

Edward turned around. A few paces behind him a tall man, clad all in black, with long black moustaches and eyes that blazed with anger, had come to a stand. Now he turned to a man with a halberd who stood at his heel. "Drive that rogue away, and scatter the crowd!" he ordered. In a trice pedler and bystanders were on the wing.

The man in black stepped up to the four children. "So your Majesty would roam the streets at will?" said he. "And did your Majesty deign to consider what would happen to this country had one of these scamps taken you at your word and fallen foul of you?"

"I wanted a little holiday, good my lord," pleaded the boy. "'Twas only for an hour."

"And one such hour might have changed the history of England," said the other, who was John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, the most powerful man in the land and guardian of the King. He looked at the others. "And what a shame to draw the Lady Jane Grey into the streets! I should have thought you at least had known better, Guildford."

The fair-haired youth flinched before his father's frown. "'Twas only for a glimpse outside the gardens, your Grace," said he.

"Enough!" commanded the Duke sternly. "We will return to Westminster now. I would ask your Majesty to be so good as to walk with me."

Whereupon he offered his arm to the boy king, and led the little procession back to the gate of the garden by as short a way as he could. But even so word had got about that the boy who was bargaining with the pedler was none other than King Edward, and that the long-bearded man was the Duke of Northumberland. Therefore every one stared from the safe vantage of windows and doors, but was careful to keep out of the way, for the Duke was known to be a man of sudden and bitter wrath.

The garden-gate closed behind the five of them, and the hour of freedom was ended. Edward, looking more like a prisoner than a monarch, was led off to the small room called his cabinet to sign papers and listen to long reports. One of her mother's maids came in search of the Lady Jane, and carried her away to the apartments of the Duchess of Suffolk, where the girl was lectured by her mother the Duchess, and then set to studying a book of sermons.

It was not a happy time for royal children. The boy king, Edward VI, was kept penned in his palace of Westminster and ruled with a rod of iron by the stern Duke; his two half-sisters, the Princess Mary and the Princess Elizabeth, were both kept well guarded in the country and rarely allowed to see their friends; and his cousin, the Lady Jane Grey, who was next in line of succession to the throne, was hardly freer than these other royal children. They were all really only pawns in a great game of chess that was being played by the great noblemen of England, and no one seemed to care in the least whether they were happy or not.

The Lady Jane did not stay long at Westminster Palace. A few days after her outing with the three boys her father and mother took her back with them to their country home. Such a trip was made slowly and with much ceremony. The Duchess, her daughter, and their ladies-in-waiting rode in great lumbering coaches, or chariots, while the Duke and his gentlemen, who often numbered as many as a hundred, rode as a guard of honor. If the weather was fine the journey was pleasant, the cavalcade stopping at noon to picnic under the trees by the road, and arriving at night at some quaint inn, to be welcomed by a cheery host and hostess, leaping wood-fires, glistening pewter, and the fragrance of a great variety of roasted meats. But when the weather was bad and the wheels of the chariots sunk so deep in the mire that the horses could hardly pull them out again, and the snow fell or the wind whistled about the mounted cavaliers, then travel through "merry England" was not so happy an affair, and men and women were glad enough to reach their homes.

The Lady Jane had been trained to absolute obedience by a mother who seemed made of iron. She was forced to study in her own room on days when the rest of the household were out-of-doors hunting or hawking, and was set tasks translating from the Latin or Greek instead of playing in the garden. Once the famous scholar Roger Ascham came to the Duke of Suffolk's home at Bradgate Hall. He met the Duke and his wife with all their friends riding through the park on the way to the hunt. He asked where he would find the Lady Jane, and was told she was in her closet reading. He went into the house and found her seated at a window studying one of the works of the Greek writer Plato. Much surprised Ascham asked her why she gave up the sport of hunting for the sake of study.

The Lady Jane smiled, and answered quite seriously, "I think all their sport in the park is but a shadow to that pleasure I find in Plato. Alas! good folk, they never felt what true pleasure means."

Just two years after Lady Jane had watched the three boys shooting arrows at Westminster she was married to one of them, the tall Guildford Dudley. He was the son of the great Duke of Northumberland, who was already planning to put his son and his son's wife on the English throne after the death of the delicate Edward VI. The wedding was very magnificent, and every one predicted that the little lady and her nineteen-year old husband would be very happy.

Edward, the boy king, died barely six weeks later, when he had not quite reached his sixteenth birthday. Then great events happened to Lady Jane. The Duke of Northumberland and many other lords and ladies went to the house where she was staying and told her that the King had disinherited both his sister the Princess Mary and his sister the Princess Elizabeth, and had ordered that Jane Grey should succeed to the crown.

Then her own father and mother and, after them, all the lords and ladies knelt before her and kissed her hand and called her Queen Jane. She was too surprised at first to make any reply, but a little later she told them all she did not wish to be Queen. They answered that it was not a matter of her choice, but was her destiny. Reserved and obedient as ever, the girl bent her head and allowed her parents to proclaim her Queen.

On July 10, 1553, Lady Jane went from Richmond to the Palace of Westminster in London, where she was dressed in the great robes of state. Then she proceeded by barge down the river Thames to the Tower of London, which was then both a palace and a prison. As she landed and entered the Tower grounds the people hailed her as Queen. Her gown was of green and gold and covered with jewels, and her young husband walked beside her under a canopy, dazzlingly arrayed in a court suit of white and gold.

This quiet little Princess only reigned as Queen of England for nine days. Most of the country rose in arms on behalf of Mary Tudor, Edward VI's oldest sister, and the Duke of Northumberland's army was soon defeated and he was taken prisoner. Jane had no wish to be Queen; she, like the others, thought that Mary was the one entitled to rule. When her father came to her on July nineteenth and told her that her friends had been beaten and that she was no longer the Queen she was really glad. She had been sitting alone in her chair of state in the council chamber when he came to her. He looked at her, deserted by all her court, and his eyes filled with tears. "Come down from that, my child," said he. "That is no place for you." Jane rose and he took her in his arms. As they stood there together they heard borne to them on the summer air loud rejoicing voices crying, "Long live good Queen Mary!"

Lady Jane looked up at her father. "Can I go home?" she asked. He bent his head, but did not answer. He did not know what was in store for them.

In spite of its glitter and magnificence that was a cruel age in England. The Church was split into two parts and each hated the other and did its best to destroy it when it had the power. It was the same with the great nobles. One followed another in ruling the state and each had little mercy for a fallen leader. The great Duke of Northumberland had lost, and now his enemies sent him to the scaffold as he had earlier sent his own rivals.

The new Queen Mary, though she was later to be known as Bloody Mary, did not wish harm to befall Jane Grey. Jane and her husband were kept in the Tower as prisoners and in time might have been freed had not some new rebels in the country taken arms against Queen Mary and threatened to drive her from the throne. Then the statesmen decided that such a rival as Jane Grey was too dangerous, and she was ordered to be tried for treason. She was found guilty, as were her father and her husband Guildford Dudley, and they were all ordered to be beheaded on Tower Hill. There on February 12, 1554, when she was only seventeen, Lady Jane was beheaded for having tried to make herself Queen. As a matter of fact she had never wanted to be Queen, nor acted except as her parents ordered.

Of the four children who had run out of the Westminster garden three years before only one was still living, the merry Barnaby Fitzpatrick. He became a great soldier, and was known as the Baron of Upper Ossory in Ireland when the Princess Elizabeth succeeded her sister Mary and became "Good Queen Bess." The world had not been very kind to young Edward Tudor nor to Guildford Dudley nor to Jane Grey. It was their misfortune to have been born so near the throne. All their lives they were really prisoners. There are few girls in history whose fate was as tragic as that of Jane, the little "Nine Days' Queen of England."

VI
Mary Queen of Scots
The Girl of the French Court: 1542-1587

Henry II, King of France, was riding into his good city of Rouen. The townspeople, eager to show their loyalty and glad of a chance holiday, had decked both the streets and themselves in all the hues of the rainbow. Henry the King and his company of gallant gentlemen rode into the city by the great highway that led from Paris, and Catherine his Queen, with her ladies, came up the winding river Seine in decorated barges, taking their course in and out among the many emerald isles like slow, calm-moving swans. The King stopped by the bridge that crossed the Seine in the heart of the city, and throwing his horse's reins to a page, descended the bank to the margin of the river, and handed the Lady Catherine to shore. He was a brilliant king, with much of the charm of his father Francis I, who had met England's Bluff King Hal on the Field of the Cloth of Gold, and he bore himself towards his Queen with a noble grace. Her hand in his he led her up from the shore and over the crimson carpets the good people of Rouen had spread in their streets, to a pavilion fluttering with flags, where seats had been placed for them. Behind the King and Queen came the ladies-in-waiting and Henry's gentlemen, and each man tried to imitate his royal master and hand his lady up the steps of the pavilion with as fine an air. Several people were already awaiting the royal guests in the stand, and among them was a girl, about ten years old, who was sitting in a big armchair, and smiling at the people in the street below, at the flags and bunting, the music and the cheers.

As the King and Queen reached the top step of the pavilion the little girl rose and stood with one hand resting on the arm of her chair. Her face was pale, but her features were very lovely, so that any one would have predicted she would some day be a great beauty. Her eyes were the rich brown called chestnut, and her hair, which waved back from her forehead, was the same color. She wore a white satin cap, fastened very low on one side of her head, with a rosette of ostrich feathers, held by a ruby brooch. Her dress was of white damask, fitting closely, with a small ruff of scalloped point lace, below which hung a collar of rubies. About her waist was a girdle set with the same red stones. Her sleeves were very large and patterned with strings of pearls. She made a lovely picture as she stood before the big crimson-lined chair.

King Henry bent, and raising the girl's small hand, touched it to his lips. "How is our little Queen of Scots?" said he. "Our little bride-to-be of France?"

"Well, please your Majesty," answered the little girl, quite self-possessed, "and glad to meet your Highness here."

Then Catherine the Queen, stooping, kissed the girl on each cheek. "Dear Lady Mary, you are a very gem, as sweet as any I have ever laid eyes on. Come sit beside me and tell me of your mother."

So the ten-year-old girl, already Queen of Scotland, and lately brought to France to marry the Dauphin Francis, took her seat with the royal pair, and watched the great pageant which now wound through the Rouen streets. It was a clear, fresh noon, with just enough breeze from the Seine to ruffle the folds of the innumerable banners. First in the great procession came the friars and monks in their gray and brown robes and with their sandaled feet. Then followed the city clergy, the gorgeous Archbishop in his robes of state, with priests bearing gold and silver crosses in a long line after him, and white-clad boys swinging censers to the time of a low rhythmic chant.

"Here come the different guilds," said a gentleman of the court, who stood by the chair of small Queen Mary. "See the rich salt merchants in their gray taffeta, with black velvet caps and long white feathers."

After the salt merchants came the drapers, in white satin doublets and hose, with gold buckles gleaming in their high white caps, and after them marched the fishmongers in shining red satin. Each of the trades of Rouen went by, each arrayed in its own colors, and as the pavilion was passed caps were doffed and cheers rose at sight of the smiling Henry and Catherine and the demure-faced little Mary.

Mary Stuart
At the Age of Nine

After the guilds and the soldiers, some on foot and some on horse, and all proud and dazzling as so many peacocks, came triumphal cars, representing gods and goddesses, and foreign countries. The little Scotch girl opened her eyes wide as she saw six huge elephants swing along the street, the first bearing on its broad back a tray of lighted lamps, the second a miniature church, the third a villa, the fourth a castle, the fifth a town, and the sixth a ship. After them came a troop of men dressed like Turks, waving scimitars. Then followed a car bearing a grotto with Orpheus seated within on a throne, listening to soft music played by a group of girls who sat about his feet. Finally appeared a barge bearing an imitation of a grove of trees with a great rock in the centre and Hercules, club in hand, standing by it. The car was stopped directly in front of the royal pavilion. A monster, the seven-headed hydra, crept out from behind the rock, and as soon as it was in full view Hercules attacked it. A mimic battle followed, and at its end Hercules had overcome the monster and cut off its seven heads, one of which he held up to the King. Henry flung him a purse of gold pieces, while the courtiers cheered. Catherine the Queen turned towards Mary. "Have you ever seen such sights in Scotland, chèrie?" she asked.

Mary shook her head. "My people are not so gay as your French," she answered.

Mary had been brought up in the customs of royal courts, and although she found this of France unusually brilliant she had felt quite at home in it since she had first come from Scotland. Her father, James V, had died when she was only a few days old, and she had been crowned nine months later. Dressed in robes of state the baby, not a year old, had been carried from her nursery to the church, and there Cardinal Beton had placed the heavy royal crown on her head, had bent her little fingers about the sceptre, and had girded her with the old historic sword that had been worn by so many fighting kings of Scotland. After that the great nobles had knelt before her and raised her tiny hand to their lips in the kiss of allegiance, and royal princes from other countries had kissed her on the cheek. The little Queen had cried, seeing so many strange people about her, and her mother had hurried her back to the nursery.

She soon grew used, however, to seeing strange people and strange happenings. When she was five years old she was betrothed to the heir of the French throne, the Dauphin, and a little later was sent to France to be educated. Her mother chose four Scotch girls of noble families to go with her, Mary Beaton, Mary Livingston, Mary Seton, and Mary Fleming, and these four were always with little Mary Stuart. They were called the "Queen's Maries," and as they grew up became famous for their beauty and their wit.

The court of France under Henry II was very gay. Tournaments had been revived, and the King and his courtiers liked to try their skill with lances in the lists. The court moved from one château to another, and at each there were hunting and hawking, dancing, archery contests, and tennis matches. Wherever the King and Queen went, there Mary Stuart went also, usually accompanied by her powerful uncles, the Duke of Guise and the Cardinal of Lorraine. In that company of beautiful and clever women the little Scotch Queen, girl as she was, could more than hold her own. She was already famous for the loveliness of her face and figure, and for her learning. The court of Valois made her their pet, and Queen Catherine used to say, "Our petite Reinette Escossaise has but to smile to turn the heads of all Frenchmen."

At all these royal châteaux Mary met Francis the Dauphin, whom she was to marry. He was about her age, but pale and delicate, and lacking the gay spirits of his father. He loved to hear of brave deeds, and he had courage, but not the strength to do the things he wanted. Like Edward VI, the boy king who sat on the English throne at about that time, Francis had never had a fair chance to be happy. He liked Mary Stuart and she liked him, which was fortunate, but they would have been married to each other whether they had cared or not.

When Mary was sixteen and Francis a year younger they were married in the great church of Notre Dame in Paris. It was one of the most magnificent weddings Paris had ever seen. The young Queen of Scotland was dressed in white, with a blue mantle and a train covered with pearls. On her head she wore a royal crown set with diamonds, rubies, pearls, and emeralds, and at her throat hung a matchless jewel known as "the Great Harry," which had belonged to her great-grandfather, Henry VII of England. The church was a sea of jewels, for in those days men wore almost as many precious stones as women, and the great stone pillars set off a blaze of costumes that reveled in all the colors of the rainbow. The nobles of Scotland were there as well as those of France, and as soon as the ceremony was over Mary turned and greeted her boy husband as Francis I, King of Scotland. Handfuls of gold coins were scattered to the crowds in the streets as the bridal party left the church, and heralds announced the coming of the "Queen-Dauphiness," and the "King-Dauphin."

That afternoon there were masquerades in the streets, and at five o'clock a great wedding supper in the Palais de Justice. The men wore suits of frosted cloth of gold, the women gowns that were stiff with jewels. Each dish was presented to the diners to the sound of music. After the supper came dancing, and then a masque that was the finest the court of France had ever seen. First there came into the hall the seven planets of the skies, Mercury in white satin, with golden girdle and wings, carrying his wand, or caduceus, in his hand. Mars appeared in armor, and Venus in sea-green flowing draperies as if she had just risen from the waves. After the planets came a procession of twelve hobby-horses, ridden by twelve boy princes, among whom were the Dauphin's two younger brothers, later to be known as Charles IX and Henry III. One of the toy horses was ridden by eight-year-old Henry of Guise, whose golden hair and beautiful blue eyes won the admiration of the great Italian poet Tasso, and who was to be the last chief of the house of Guise and to fall, struck down by the blows of the forty-five guardsmen, as he passed through the halls of the château of Blois to meet King Henry III, the little boy who rode so gaily by him now. Last of all there came into the room six ships, decked with cloth of gold and crimson velvet, their sails of silver gauze fastened to masts of silver. The ships were slowly steered down the hall, each gliding as though carried over gently swelling waters, and the sails of each filling with the breath of an artificial breeze. On each ship were two chairs of state, in one of which sat a prince in cloth of gold, with a mask over his eyes. As the ships sailed by the groups of ladies and young girls each prince seized a lady and placed her on the chair by his side. King Henry, like a skilful mariner, steered his ship close to the marble table by which the little bride sat, and reaching down drew her on board his vessel. The Dauphin caught Queen Catherine, and each of the other princes chose a belle from the group of lovely ladies. Then, as if blown by favoring gales, the ships sailed on about the great room, and out through the archway to the dancing hall. The great ball that followed was worthy of the day. The dazzling bride danced the pavon, a form of minuet which was very stately and graceful. Her train was twelve yards long and was borne after her by a gentleman, so that she had full chance to show her skill and grace.

Mary, sixteen years old, now Queen of Scotland and Dauphiness of France, was quite content with what was already hers, and had no wish to conquer other crowns. But the grown-up people about her were always scheming, and cared absolutely nothing for her wishes where matters of state were concerned. So, when Mary the Queen of England died and the Princess Elizabeth ascended the English throne, Henry II of France insisted that his daughter-in-law was the rightful sovereign of the British Isles. A great tournament was being given in honor of the marriage of Elizabeth of France to Philip II of Spain, and the French King had Mary borne to her place on the royal balcony in a car of triumph with the banners of Scotland and England together flying over her head, and heralds in front of her crying, "Hail, hail, all hail the Queen of England!" The people took up the cry and soon all those at the tournament had hailed Mary under this new title. Little did they think that news of this, carried by sure couriers to Elizabeth in London, would cause her to nurse thoughts of revenge against her cousin during many years to come.

Hailed by this new title the innocent girl-queen Mary took her place in the royal balcony and the tournament began. It was an afternoon in early summer and directly before her stretched the green carpet of the lists where the knights were to try their skill at arms. The King himself was to set his lance in rest, and was already riding up and down at his end of the lists on a curveting bay recently sent him by the Duke of Savoy. Each knight wore the colors of some lady, Henry the black and white of the Lady Diane de Poitiers, the Duke of Guise red and white, the Duke of Ferrara yellow and red, the Duke of Nemours yellow and black.

It was a stirring sight to see the knights, clad in full armor, the visors of their helmets drawn, grip their long heavy lances under their arms, and setting spurs to their great chargers, dash swiftly across the field and meet midway in a terrific clash. Lance rang on shield or helm or breastplate, the riders struggled to hold their seats in the saddle, and then if neither was unhorsed they rode past each other to turn at the farther end of the lists, and prepare for the next onset. The little Queen, with her four Maries about her, watched the dashes and the shivering of lances with excitement in her eyes, and clapped her hands or sighed as a favorite knight came off victorious or was hurled from his saddle to the ground. But that day all the knights were powerful, and though each challenged the others in turn none could claim to be the absolute champion.

The sun was sinking low, and the knights had given their lances to their squires when King Henry rode across to the royal balcony, and raising his visor, spoke to a man who was sitting near Mary. "Come, my lord Count of Montgomery," said the King. "I would fain break a lance with you. To horse, for the honor of your lady and the glory of France!"

The Count rose from his seat. "It is an honor, sire, to meet so great a champion in the lists, but to-day I must crave pardon. The hour is over late for me."

"The light holds well, my lord. 'Twill see one meeting," answered Henry. "I would have the court see how well Montgomery can hold a lance."

"It is most gracious of you, sire. Were the time otherwise——" It was quite evident that the Count was anxious not to meet the King.

But Henry was impatient of refusal. He interrupted, and said with a hasty gesture, "An I must command I will. To horse, my lord, and with what speed you may."

There was nothing for the Count to do but bow, whisper an excuse to the lady at his side, and leaving the pavilion seek the tents. In a short time he rode out into the field, his armor shining golden in the sunset, his lance in his gauntleted hands, a favor of blue and orange ribbons fluttering at the crest of his helmet. Meantime the King had curbed his horse to a place before the balcony where the Queen sat. Catherine leaned forward. "Have you not ridden enough to-day, sire?" she asked. "I would beg you to stop."

"One more joust," said Henry, "and this one, madame, in honor of yourself."

"But, sire," she persisted, "you cannot excel the deeds you have already done to-day, and now you should join the ladies."

Henry, however, with a smile, shook his head. "This one shall end the day," he said, and rode to his end of the course.

Mary Seton leaned forward to speak to her young mistress. "The Count of Montgomery, being Captain of the Scottish Guard, dared not refuse, with you here to see," she whispered. "See how he reins up his charger. He is young, and not anxious to break his lance on the King's coat-of-mail."

Montgomery took his place, lowered his visor, and set his lance. At the opposite end the King did the same. Then at a signal each touched his spurs to his horse, and rode furiously fast to the onset. There was a crash, the shock of steel, and a cry from the audience. The Count had driven his lance at the King's helmet, and it had broken short. The blow sent the King reeling and he was whirled about so fast that he had difficulty to keep his seat. The Count rode on, but the King, only too evidently dazed, swayed in his saddle, and then fell forward on his charger's neck. A dozen men sprang forward, and catching the King, helped him to the ground. A glance showed what had happened. Montgomery's lance had broken and a splinter of the steel had been driven through an eyehole of the helmet into the King's head just over his right eye. The men took off his armor and carried him as gently as they could into the palace.

Thus suddenly the celebrations of the Princess Elizabeth's wedding came to an end. The young and reluctant Count of Montgomery had given the King his death wound, and a few days later the spirited monarch died. The triumphal arches and banners were torn down, and the bells of Paris tolled slowly where they had rung joyful peals so short a time before.

So the Dauphin Francis and Mary Stuart became King and Queen of France. He was sixteen and she seventeen. They were too young to reign and Francis was much too delicate. Moreover there were two or three grown-up people who had no intention of letting the boy and girl have their own way. Behind the throne stood the boy's mother, Queen Catherine de' Medici, and the unscrupulous and ambitious uncles of the girl, the Duke of Guise and the Cardinal of Lorraine. They headed the Catholic party in the kingdom and they were pursuing the hapless Huguenots with torch and sword. Careless of the young King's wishes they plunged France into terrible civil wars wherein massacres were a matter of almost daily occurrence.

Francis and Mary were crowned in the old Cathedral of Rheims, where Joan of Arc had once seen her Dauphin crowned, and over the royal pair hung the banners of France, Scotland, and England. Then they traveled south to the château of Blois, and Francis amused himself with hunting while the Queen and her four Maries either rode out after the gentlemen to watch the sport or stayed at home to listen to the poems and songs of troubadours or walked on the banks of the small winding river Loire. She was more beautiful than ever, and very fond of her husband Francis, and their little court, made up largely of boys and girls nearly their own age, enjoyed itself thoroughly while the dark figures of Catherine and Mary's uncles were free to plunge the kingdom into blood.

The house of Valois had spent all its strength, and the four sons of the gallant Henry II, three of whom were to be kings in turn, were fated to be weak and sickly. Francis drooped and pined, and a year had barely passed before his reign was ended, and Mary, patient nurse at his side, was made a widow. Charles, the second brother, came to the throne, only to find it a place of weariness and regret, and to shudder at the horrors of the Massacre of St. Bartholomew's Eve, planned by his mother. Perhaps it was as well for Mary that her reign in France had ended. The land had fallen into evil days, wherein there was little happiness for any one.

The Queen of Scots, still only a girl, went back to her northern home, and the people of that mountainous land were glad to welcome her to the old historic Palace of Holyrood in Edinburgh. But even when she was leaving France her cousin Elizabeth the English Queen showed her enmity. Mary had asked to be allowed to pass through England on her way to Scotland, but this Elizabeth refused, and Mary was obliged to make the long sea-voyage.